The Valparaiso University men’s basketball team won’t have to wait long to officially welcome two of the Missouri Valley Conference’s newest members.

The Beacons will open the 2022-2023 conference slate, which was announced by the league office on Thursday, with a trip to Nashville, Tenn. for a conference-opening game at Belmont on Thursday, Dec. 1. The team’s other early-December league contest will come against another newcomer as Murray State will make its way to the Athletics-Recreation Center on Sunday, Dec. 4 for the first home date of Valley play. Murray State went 31-3 last season including a perfect 18-0 Ohio Valley Conference record before reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

After the first two league outings, Valpo will play its four remaining nonconference games before returning to MVC action following the Christmas holiday. The Beacons will make their way to Des Moines, Iowa to face Drake on Thursday, Dec. 29 before ringing in the new year by hosting Indiana State on Sunday, Jan. 1.

Valpo will play the three new members of the conference twice each, including matchups with nearby foe UIC on Jan. 17 at the ARC and Feb. 19 in Chicago. The Beacons will close out the regular season with their first league trip to Murray, Ky. to take on the Races on Feb. 26.

This year’s conference schedule does not feature a full double round robin format, as each team will play 20 league contests. Valpo will play Southern Illinois (Feb. 14 at the ARC) and Missouri State (Feb. 1 in Springfield, Mo.) just once each, while the Beacons take on the remaining nine teams in full home-and-home series.

The season-opening date with Belmont will represent the first collision between those two teams since 2015, when the two programs played a rare nonconference home-and-home with both teams defending their home court in games that were decided by four points each. Valpo last played Murray State in November 2014, a 93-58 victory as part of a multi-team event in Nashville.

UIC is one of the top 10 most common opponents in program history, as the two teams have clashed 57 times including nonconference matchups each of the last two years. This marks the third time Valpo and UIC have shared conference affiliation as they were previously league adversaries in the Association of Mid-Continent Universities and the Horizon League.

Led by leading returning scorers Ben Krikke and Kobe King, Valpo will tip off the seventh year of Matt Lottich’s head coaching regime on Monday, Nov. 7 at Toledo. Fans will have an early opportunity to catch Valpo Basketball on Saturday, Oct. 29 as part of a noon exhibition game against Cedarville.