Michigan, VCU on nonconference schedule

Michigan is coming to the Erwin Center, and Texas coach Shaka Smart will get a decidedly unwelcome reception when he returns to VCU this upcoming men’s basketball season.

The Longhorns released the nonconference portion of the 2017-18 schedule Thursday. The Big 12 half of the schedule will be released at a later date.

The season begins Nov. 10 against Northwestern State, and Texas will host New Hampshire (Nov. 14) and Lipscomb (Nov. 18).

The Longhorns will then travel to Portland, Ore., to compete in the PK80, a power-packed tournament designed to honor Nike founder Phil Knight. Texas will play Butler on Nov. 23 and then either Duke or Portland State on Nov. 24. A third game will take place Nov. 26.

The Longhorns return home to face Florida A&M on Nov. 29. Then come backto-back whoppers.

Texas will travel to Virginia Commonwealth on Dec. 5 as required by Smart’s contract with his former employer. Then, it’s back home as UT faces Michigan on Dec. 12 in the return matchup of the home-and-home series that began last season.

Games against Louisiana Tech (Dec. 16), Tennessee State (Dec. 18) and a trip to Alabama (Dec. 22) round out the pre-Christmas schedule.

The final nonconference game will be Jan. 27 against Ole Miss at the Erwin Center the Big 12/SEC Challenge.

Track and field: George Patrick and Tripp Piperi will compete for Team USA at the Pan American Junior Championships in Lima, Peru, beginning Friday.

A former Longhorn, Eric Metcalf, will also be on hand serving as a men’s assistant coach for Team USA. The former two-sport star at Texas is currently an assistant track coach for the Washington Huskies.

Patrick qualified for the Pan American Junior Championships with 7,547 points in the decathlon at the USATF Junior Championships in June. The rising sophomore dominated the event and took two wins on the final day, the javelin and the 110meter hurdles.

Piperi, a soon-to-be Longhorn, will join Patrick at the Junior Championships as a result of finishing with a silver medal in the shot put at the USATF Junior Championships. He had a throw of 68 feet, 3 inches.

Patrick begins competition Friday and finishes off the decathlon Saturday.

Piperi will throw Sunday as the No. 2-ranked competitor.

Next week Big 12 decathlon champion Steele Wasik will compete for Team USA in the Thorpe Cup, a competition of combined events between Germany and Team USA.

In August, Texas will be represented by six Longhorns at the IAAF World Championships in London.