Kevin Baker Releases 2018-19 Women’s Basketball Schedule

In anticipation for the 2018-19 season, UTEP women's basketball head coach Kevin Baker released the team's schedule on Thursday afternoon. Some notable games include matchups against New Mexico State at home (Nov. 17), and road games against New Mexico (Dec. 5), Arizona (Dec. 17) and former C-USA opponent Tulsa (Dec. 29).

Here's the full schedule:

Here's what Baker had to say about the schedule:

"Scheduling is the hardest thing I do other than recruiting. It's really difficult to get home games out here, so I would love to be that specific to mirror our conference as much as it would allow and that's not the case. We're trying to find people who will come play here. You have to have a couple confidence builders along the way, there's no doubt about that, but we need to be tested if it's here or there. And we're certainly going to be tested."

Interestingly enough, the Miners will spend the majority of the fall at home, but travel on the road from Dec. 9 through Jan. 17.

"The way that I like to do it is have them in class; as much time as they're in class in the fall is something we try to do," Baker explained. "We want all our traveling to be during the holidays. That's not exactly how it will be, but if you're wondering, I'd prefer us to play as many home games as we can in the fall so they can stay in class as much as possible."

The Miners open up their season with a pair of exhibition games (WNMU-Oct. 27 and St. Mary’s (TX)-Nov. 3) before their opening game against Alcorn State (Nov. 10) at home.

They will participate in the UTEP Thanksgiving Classic, including Texas Southern, Abilene Christian and Nicholls State. The Las Vegas Christmas Shootout (Dec. 20-21) will have five other mid-major programs, other than UTEP, and its schedule will be released soon, per Baker.

Conference action begins on the road, as the Miners travel to UTSA (Jan. 5), North Texas (Jan. 10) and Rice (Jan. 12). They open C-USA play at home on Jan. 17 against UAB.

The team will return Jordan Alexander, Jordan Jenkins, Zuzanna Puc and Katarina Zec, while bringing on new additions that redshirted last season, like Ariona Gill and Neidy Ocuane.

"Gill is going to be an amazing player," Baker said. "May have been the smartest thing I've done by redshirting her last season."