BURNSVILLE–The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference has announced its basketball and wrestling schedules for the 2020-21 academic year. The schedules were approved by the NSIC Board of Directors with the health and safety of student-athletes, coaches, and staff as the top priority. Both the basketball and wrestling schedules will begin in January and schools will follow NCAA Sports Science Institute (SSI) guidelines for competition.

To mitigate COVID-19 exposure, schools will only compete against one opponent each week of the season.

The NSIC men’s and women’s basketball schedules will be 16-games played over eight weeks with teams playing the same opponent at one site on back-to-back days. The season will start with two non-conference games against one NSIC out-of-division opponent. The conference schedule will then consist of 14 games with teams playing each member of its division twice. For this season, the NSIC will only crown a North Division and South Division champion.

The SMSU women’s and men’s basketball teams will open the season on Jan. 2-3, 2021, at Minot State, before playing at Winona State on Jan. 8-9. The two teams will play their first games in Marshall on Jan. 15-16 versus Upper Iowa.

The NSIC wrestling schedule will be six duals starting the second week of January and concluding the second week of February. Schools will compete against six of its nine conference opponents. A regular season champion will be crowned based on win percentage from the six duals.

The SMSU wrestling team opens the season at MSU Moorhead on Jan. 7, 2021, at MSU Moorhead, before hosting its first dual on Jan. 14 versus UMary.

Enhanced preseason reveals will be announced in mid-December for all winter sports via the NSIC Network and at NorthernSun.org. The reveals will include preseason coaches’ polls, preseason players of the year, preseason student-athletes to watch, team previews and quotes from coaches.

The conference will continue to monitor the landscape and conditions surrounding the pandemic, locally, regionally, and nationally, and make any decisions or announcements, at a later date, as necessary.

Content courtesy

of SMSU Athletic

Communications