The big news here is that the February 5th home game vs. Illinois will be nationally televised on CBS. The overall schedule isn't quite as front-loaded as last year, but the 'Cats will be fortunate to avoid an 0-3 start, beginning the conference season with trips to Purdue and Illinois sandwiched around a home game against Michigan State.

Once the entire non-conference schedule is released, we can start figuring how many wins will be necessary for an NCAA bid, but that will take a minimum of 9 conference wins, and that won't be easy against such a strong Big Ten.