OKLAHOMA CITY - A furious finish to the 2018-19 season helped the Mid-America Christian University men's basketball team earn a trip to the NAIA Division I Men's Basketball National Championship for the second time in head coach Josh Gamblin's four years on the bench. The Evangels took advantage of that opportunity, advancing to the second round of the tournament before bowing out in a nail-biter. As the 2019-20 season gets set to kick off, Gamblin and his staff put together the schedule with an eye toward returning to Kansas City, and on Thursday, the Evangels released the schedule for the winter season.

"We are extremely excited for the season," Gamblin said. "We have a challenging non-conference schedule that hopefully sets us up to compete in the toughest NAIA conference in the country. Our guys will be tested right away at home, and we have some extremly tough road trips."

The Evangels tip off at home with three straight home games, but in the span of just four days. The season commences with a tilt against Ecclesia College (Ark.) on Friday, October 25, and just 20 hours later, the Evangels will hit the floor again against Manhattan Christian College (Kan.). After taking Sunday off, MACU will host Texas A&M-Texarkana on Monday to round out the home stand.

The first of the Evangels' two exhibition games will be on November 1 at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, and after that, MACU will return home to take on LSU-Shreveport - a team that finished second in the Red River Athletic Conference a year ago, was ranked 17th in the final NAIA Division I men's basketball coaches' poll, and who also advanced to the second round in Kansas City. MACU will play home-and-home series with nearby Randall University, as well as Texas A&M-Texarkana, with Northern New Mexico College again on the non-conference slate - this time in Espanola, New Mexico. MACU's other exhibition game comes between tilts with Texas A&M-Texarkana and conference foe the University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma, when they head south to take on the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley on December 6.

Sooner Athletic Conference play opens with a date with Langston University at home in the Gaulke Activity Center. The Lions will be seeking revenge in that game as MACU's late season surge a year ago - which included two wins against the Lions - helped push MACU into the NAIA tournament field, while Langston was left out. After road games at Central Christian College of Kansas (Nov. 23) and USAO (Dec. 13), MACU will take time off for the Christmas holiday before returning to the floor in January for the meat of their schedule.

The new year begins with a non-conference date with Bacone College (Okla.), who left the SAC after last season, in Muskogee, and a home game against John Brown University (Ark.). Following the JBU game, MACU will swing west to take on teams in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, before turning south to the Fort Worth. The Evangels will battle Wayland Baptist University (Texas), Oklahoma Panhandle State University, and Texas Wesleyan University in succession before returning to central Oklahoma where they will play four straight games in Oklahoma City. MACU will take on Southwestern Assemblies of God University (Texas), Southwestern Christian University (Okla.), and USAO at home, with a road game across town at Oklahoma City University in that span as well.

After a trip to JBU to end the month of January, MACU will only leave the state of Oklahoma one time in February as they play the bulk of their games down the stretch at or near home. An early February home stand will see MACU battle Bacone, Wayland Baptist, and OPSU, and though two of the Evangels' final three games are on the road, they are at SCU in Bethany and Langston in Langston - both of which are less than 90 minutes from home for the Evangels.

The SAC tournament will open with the top four seeds hosting quarterfinal games on March 3, and the semifinals and finals will be in Plainview, Texas at Wayland Baptist on March 6-7. The final NAIA Division I men's basketball championship before the reunification of the NAIA divisions will take place from March 18-24 at historic Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri.