{"id":326028,"date":"2026-08-20T18:50:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T18:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/326028\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T18:50:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T18:50:49","slug":"metro-conference-mens-basketball-schedule-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/326028\/","title":{"rendered":"Metro Conference men\u2019s basketball schedule announced"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Metro Conference announced its 2026-27 men\u2019s basketball conference schedule on Thursday in a press release. Each team will play 20 conference games and the top 10 teams will qualify for the Metro Conference Tournament in Atlantic City.<\/p>\n

As Mid-Major Madness reported earlier, the season\u2019s opening game will be between Saint Peter\u2019s and Manhattan on Wednesday, Dec. 2 in Riverdale. Additionally, a championship game rematch is on the docket for opening weekend, with reigning regular-season champs Merrimack traveling to take on reigning tournament champions Siena on Friday, Dec. 4. That will also serve as Nevada Smith<\/a>\u2019s first Metro Conference game as Siena\u2019s head coach.<\/p>\n

Each team plays against eight other programs home and away, and then faces two teams only at home and two teams only on the road. Here\u2019s the full breakdown of the matchups that we\u2019ll only see once.<\/p>\n

Following the Saint Peter\u2019s\/Manhattan matchup on Dec. 2, the rest of the Metro slate will open on Friday, Dec. 4. Here are the matchups for opening night:<\/p>\n

After the opening weekend of games (Dec. 2, 4, 6), the teams will play nonconference games for the next three weeks. The conference schedule resumes on Tuesday, Dec. 29. There will be a full six-game slate on New Year\u2019s Day, Friday, Jan. 1. That slate is headlined by Saint Peter\u2019s traveling to Quinnipiac and Iona visiting Siena.<\/p>\n

The Metro Conference had three Saturday game days in 2025-26, but will only have two in 2026-27. Those game days will be the Saturday before MLK Day and the Saturday directly before the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

Many around the league were disappointed with the officiating on Super Bowl Saturday last year. It\u2019s harder for the conference to book high-level referees on Saturday when competing with a massive power conference and mid-major slate. On Fridays and Sundays, with much fewer games, it\u2019s an easier draw for better officials.<\/p>\n

For the second consecutive season, the Metro will play on MLK Day. The MLK Day matchups are<\/p>\n

Here are the dates for a few major Metro Conference rivalries:<\/p>\n

End of the Regular Season<\/p>\n

The final day of the Metro Conference regular season is Sunday, Feb. 28.<\/p>\n

Metro Conference Tournament<\/p>\n

The Metro Conference Tournament will be held in Atlantic City for the eighth consecutive year. It\u2019s part of a new contract announced last February that will keep the championships inside Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall through 2031.<\/p>\n

The tournament will once again only take the top 10 teams, and it will begin on Thursday, March 4 with the 8\/9 and 7\/10 games. The men\u2019s championship game will be played on Tuesday, March 9.<\/p>\n

This is Fairfield\u2019s final year in the Metro before leaving for the CAA<\/a>. The conference lost all but one All-Conference selection\u2014 and the one, Quinnipiac\u2019s Asim Jones, only announced his return a few weeks ago in the wake of the Colorado ruling\u2013 but two All-Rookie selections return in Fairfield\u2019s Declan Wucherpfennig and Quinnipiac\u2019s Keith McKnight. Siena\u2019s Nevada Smith is the only new coach in the conference, replacing Gerry McNamara, who left for Syracuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Metro Conference announced its 2026-27 men\u2019s basketball conference schedule on Thursday in a press release. Each team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,57,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-326028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}