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The UConn Huskies will open their season on Friday against the Michigan State Spartans at the Ramstein Air Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany. It will be the first Division I basketball game ever played in Europe.
UConn enters the season unranked, and ineligible for the postseason due to a failure to meet NCAA academic standards. They lost five players in the offseason after the postseason ban was announced.
Perhaps most importantly, the Huskies enter the game without their longtime head coach Jim Calhoun, who retired after last season. Friday will mark the debut of Kevin Ollie, who was Calhoun's hand-picked successor. Ollie is young and fairly inexperienced. Because this is his first job as a head coach, UConn gave Ollie just a one-year contract.
No. 14 Michigan State enters the season with high expectations. Coach Tom Izzo is certainly optimistic about his team's depth, despite losing All-American Draymond Green.
Tip-off is at 5:30 p.m. ET.