BOONEVILLE, Miss. - The Northeast Mississippi Community College men's basketball program is now on a level playing field with its peers around the country in terms of scheduling.
The Tigers will join the rest of the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) members in playing 30 regular season games during the upcoming 2023-24 campaign.
Previous rules in place by the Mississippi Association of Community Colleges Conference (MACCC) restricted basketball teams to 26 contests last year and to only 23 for decades before that.
Those limitations were eliminated this offseason. Cord Wright, who is beginning his eleventh season as Northeast's headman, took advantage of the extra opportunities by adding three two-day tournaments to his calendar.
Two of those classics will take place on the Booneville campus. They are named in honor of hall of fame coaches Bonner Arnold and Harvey Childers, who both took the Tigers to the national championship game during their respective tenures.
The idea behind the titles stems back to Northeast's year-long celebration of its 75th anniversary. Arnold was nicknamed "The Dean of Junior College Coaches" after leading the Tigers to 497 wins while Childers captured more than 1,000 victories between the collegiate and high school levels.
Baton Rouge (La.) Post Graduate Academy, Dyersburg State (Tenn.) Community College, East Mississippi Community College and Northeast are the participants for the Bonner Arnold Classic from November 10-11.
The Harvey Childers Classic features the Tigers plus Motlow State (Tenn.) Community College, Northwest Mississippi Community College and State Fair (Mo.) Community College just over one month later.
"Creating the classics was a big thing," said Wright. "We wanted to honor those guys that had been here. We want to build on these classics each year. We want to get some high class teams in here from across the country."
Northeast will also travel to the Show Me State for the second straight season to meet Three Rivers (Mo.) Community College and Mineral Area (Mo.) College at the Imo's Bob Sechrest Classic. The host Cardinals rose to as high as No. 22 in the national ratings one year ago.
Nine of the Tigers' first 12 contests are at home, including five-in-a-row to open the new season. There are 18 total games this year inside legendary Bonner Arnold Coliseum compared to just 11 during the previous campaign.
"Playing at home is a tremendous advantage," Wright said. "Last year, it was hard to get games so with the addition of some games it worked out to where we piled on as many as we could. We're excited about that."
Other significant changes include the return of traditional men's and women's doubleheaders for MACCC games. The start of conference play was also pushed back to the middle of January in order to align with a later date for the national tournament in Kansas.
Northeast's initial league matchup is on Thursday, January 18 at Coahoma Community College. The Tigers welcome Itawamba Community College for the only meeting this season between the archrivals on Monday, January 29.
The Tigers entertain Jones College in a playoff rematch on Monday, February 26. March Madness begins in earnest when Pearl River Community College comes to town for the regular season finale on the seventh.