Arkansas’ men’s basketball team will open a home-and-home series this season with one of the sport’s most storied programs, according to a report.
Jon Rothstein, a college basketball insider for CBS Sports, wrote on Twitter that the Razorbacks will play Indiana on Nov. 18 in Bud Walton Arena. Arkansas will make a return trip to Bloomington in 2019-2020, according to Rothstein.
The game in November will be played as part of the Hardwood Showcase, an exempt event that also includes UT-Arlington, UC-Davis, Texas A&M Corpus Christi and Montana State, according to the News-Sentinel newspaper in Fort Wayne, Ind.
It is believed Arkansas will play some those teams, but it is unclear when or where, or whether the Razorbacks will play all of the teams at the showcase event.
Arkansas and Indiana have met only twice and the all-time series is tied 1-1. They last played in the first round of the 2008 NCAA Tournament, a game Arkansas won 86-72. The only other meeting came during the 1949-50 season.
Indiana becomes the fifth known nonconference opponent on Arkansas’ upcoming schedule, joining Texas in El Paso, Texas, on Nov. 9, Texas Tech in the Big 12/SEC Challenge, Colorado State and Western Kentucky. Dates for the games against Western Kentucky and Colorado State have not yet been announced.
The Hoosiers finished the 2017-18 season with a 16-15 record and a 9-9 mark in the Big Ten in coach Archie Miller's first season. Indiana returns star Juwan Morgan, who averaged a team-high 16.5 points and 7.4 rebounds last season, and is bringing in a star-studded recruiting class that features five-star shooting guard Romeo Langford and three other four-star prospects. The class is ranked 10th nationally, according to 247 Sports.
Miller, who led Dayton’s basketball program to 139 wins and four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time in school history, was hired by Indiana in March 2017 after Tom Crean was let go.
Miller was head coach of the Flyers when Dayton and Arkansas played a home-and-home series in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.