Arizona basketball to play home-and-home series with Southern as part of Pac-12, SWAC scheduling partnership

The Pac-12 and SWAC announced a scheduling partnership on Monday that will feature men’s and women’s basketball home-and-home series between member institutions.

The alliance begins with six men’s games in Nov. 2022, followed by the return games the following season. (The women’s games will be announced soon.) By the end of the 2025-26 season, all 12 Pac-12 programs will participate.

As part of the agreement, the Arizona Wildcats men’s team will host the Southern Jaguars in Tucson on the weekend of Nov. 10-13, 2022, then face the Jaguars in Baton Rouge in Nov. 2023.

Per the Pac-12 press release, the goal of the partnership is “aimed at creating both a forum for competition, as well as promotion and education around issues of anti-racism and social justice.”

“Student-athletes will participate in social justice and anti-racism educational components as part of the games,” the release says. “Programming for the student-athletes will be a collaboration between campus leadership from the two participating men’s basketball programs. In addition, campus athletics departments will facilitate private meetings between athletics directors and their respective senior staff as part of the partnership.”

From a basketball perspective, Southern has been one of the better SWAC teams over the years. They have had a winning conference record in nine of the last 10 seasons and reached the NCAA Tournament in 2013 and 2016 after winning their conference tournament.

Southern went 8-11 in the shortened 2020-21 season, including an 8-6 mark in the SWAC.