While not much is known regarding the Osprey’s MBB non-conference schedule, Wednesday and Thursday announcements revealed two new pieces of the puzzle. This came when both the High Point Panthers and the East Carolina Pirates released their non-conference slate via the teams’ Twitter pages.

The Panthers are a member of the Big South Conference, and are no stranger to the Ospreys. Last season, the two faced off at UNF Arena, with the Ospreys winning 93–70. High Point will host this year’s matchup, taking place on Saturday, Dec. 5. Unfortunately, the school’s brand new $130M Qubein Arena is not ready for competition yet, so the game will be played at the Millis Athletic Convocation Center.

When the two teams met last December, UNF forward Carter Hendricksen scored 23 points, a career-high performance. Last season, the Panthers finished last in the Big South, rounding out the year with a 9-23 record. This should be a bounce back year, making this matchup no easy task for the Ospreys.

East Carolina revealed their schedule, revealing a contest with the Ospreys on Thursday, Dec. 10. The Pirates were a bottom-tier team in the American Athletic Conference last season, finishing 11–20. While ECU is coming off of a rough year, this is still a big-time opponent out of a major conference for UNF. 

The game will take place at ECU’s Williams Arena in Greenville, North Carolina. Playing a higher level team should prove to be a great opportunity for the Ospreys to improve before taking on the ASUN in-conference slate. Of the six tentative non-conference games for the Ospreys, five of them are set to take place in the state of North Carolina.

UNF is yet to make an official announcement regarding any non-conference games. However, as more teams release their non-conference schedules, the Ospreys have been seen in a few of these releases, including that of the Florida Gators. With only three weeks until the season is set to start, we should see more opponents of the Ospreys announced day by day. Follow along with Spinnaker Sports to be updated when these matchups are inevitably announced in the coming weeks.

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