PEORIA, Ill. -- The 2013-14 Bradley women's basketball schedule is complete with the recent announcement of the Missouri Valley Conference schedule by the league office.
The Braves will open league play on the road for the second consecutive year and seventh time in the last eight seasons when Bradley visits Carbondale, Ill., for a Jan. 2 matchup with Southern Illinois.
Despite playing in the same conference as the Salukis for 30 years, the league opener at SIU will mark just the second time Bradley and Southern Illinois will have met in the first conference game of the year. The Braves and Salukis opened the 1993-94 Valley slate with a contest in Carbondale, Ill.
Bradley, which plays two non-conference home games in the month of December, will have just three home games in January and opens the MVC schedule with five of the first seven games on the road. The Braves will play five of seven games on the road to start league play for the first time since 2008-09.
After a Jan. 4 game at Evansville, Bradley returns to Renaissance Coliseum to play Missouri State (Jan. 10) in the MVC home opener. Defending regular-season co-champion Wichita State visits Peoria on Jan. 12, before the Braves open a three-game road swing.
Bradley will visit Loyola for the first time as a conference foe Jan. 19 to kick off the road swing, which also includes games at Northern Iowa (Jan. 24) and at Drake (Jan. 26).
The first half of league play wraps up with home games against Indiana State (Jan. 31) and I-74 rival Illinois State (Feb. 2), which will play a special noon game at Renaissance Coliseum on Super Bowl Sunday.
The Braves start the second half of the Valley slate Feb. 7 at Wichita State and play a Feb. 9 game at Missouri State before closing out the regular season with five of the last seven games at home.
Three-time WNBA MVP and three-time Olympic Gold medalist Sheryl Swoopes will bring her Loyola team to Renaissance Coliseum for a Feb. 15 game to kick off a season-long three-game home stand, which also features contests against Drake (Feb. 21) and Northern Iowa (Feb. 23).
Bradley makes the trek down I-74 for a matchup with rival Illinois State at Redbird Arena on Feb. 27 and the Braves play their final road game of the year at Indiana State (March 2).
The regular-season concludes at home for the second straight year and seventh time in eight seasons with contests against Evansville (March 6) and Southern Illinois (March 8). Bradley will close out the season with five of seven games at home for the first time since 2010-11 and finish out the slate against SIU for the first time since 1996-97.
