The Wisconsin Herd will tip off its first game ever on the road against the Rio Grande Valley Vipers on Nov. 6, the team announced, with its home opener against the Windy City Bulls on Nov. 17.
The Herd, the NBA G League affiliate of the Milwaukee Bucks, will play a 50-game schedule in its inaugural season. That includes 24 home and road contests and two neutral-site games in Mississauga, Ontario, as part of the annual NBA G League Showcase in January.
Following Wisconsin’s home opener against Windy City, the Herd will host the Maine Red Claws the following evening in Oshkosh, marking the first of six back-to-back weekend home games for the team in 2017-18. The Herd will play in the new Oshkosh Arena, which is expected to be completed this fall.
All Herd home games tip off at 7 p.m., with the exception of a matinee day game at 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 24 against the Erie BayHawks. The team has 16 home games on either Friday or Saturday. For the full schedule, click here.
Wisconsin plays all Eastern Conference teams at least three times and will face eight of the 13 squads from the Western Conference. The Herd will host all three fellow 2017 NBA G League Expansion teams during its inaugural season. The defending league champions, Raptors 905, visit Oshkosh on March 3.
Wisconsin begins its first campaign with one of its two season-long, four-game road trips (Nov. 6-11 and Dec. 23-30). The schedule features two season-long, three-game homestands in December (Dec. 6-9 and Dec. 15-20), as well as three-game homestands before and after the All-Star Break (Feb. 9-21). The Herd have nine back-to-back sets (six home/home, two road/road, one road/home). By month, Wisconsin will play nine games in November, 13 in December, eight in both January and February and 10 in March.
The team recently completed its expansion draft, obtaining the rights to 11 players. For information on the team and season tickets, click here.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
