2025-26 Schedule

LORETTO, Pa. - Saint Francis men's basketball head coach Luke McConnell has announced his 2025-26 non-conference slate. The schedule is highlighted by games against Oklahoma, TCU, Xavier, Temple and Florida. In addition, the Red Flash will host former Northeast Conference (NEC) foes Mount St. Mary's and Robert Morris as part of four non-conference home games.

"We have always believed in putting together a tough and challenging non-conference schedule and this year will be no different," said McConnell. "Our group looks forward to the challenge and I am excited to compete with them against some high level competition from all around the country. Our guys will be well prepared as head into NEC play."
 

McConnell will make his head coaching debut at Oklahoma on November 3. It will be the first meeting against the Oklahoma and the first time the Red Flash will be in the Sooner State since 1973-74 against Oklahoma State. It will be the 10th time the Frankies have played an SEC school and the first since playing at Texas A&M in 2016-17.

COACHING DEBUT AGAINST A BIG NAME SCHOOL

McConnell becomes the fifth Saint Francis head coach to make his Red Flash coaching debut against a Power 5 Conference team, joining Dave Magarity (LSU), Tom McConnell (Pittsburgh), Don Friday (Texas Tech) and Rob Krimmel (Penn State). McConnell is the second head coach to face an SEC team for his first head coaching game after Magarity battled LSU in 1978-79.

FIRST COACHING VICTORY

McConnell looks to become the sixth head coach dating back to 1945-46 to earn a win in his first game as the Red Flash head coach, but just the second to earn win his head coaching debut on the road after John Clark earned his first victory at Duquesne in his first game in 1966-67. Dick Conover (Old Dominion), Pete Lonergan (Pitt Johnstown), Kevin Porter (Lock Haven), Jim Baron (Slippery Rock) and Bobby Jones (Morehead State) all won their first game coached as a head coach with the Flash at home. 

Dating back to 1945-46 (Dr. William "Skip" Hughes first season), if McConnell wins his first game on the road he would only be the third head coach dating back to that season to reach the feat away from Loretto. Along with Clark, Tom McConnell defeated Buffalo on December 7, 1992 on the road to be the only two coaches to earn their first Red Flash win on the road. Hughes (Alliance), Magarity (St. Michael's), Friday (Bucknell) and Krimmel won their first Saint Francis game at home, but not in their first game as a head coach like Conover, Lonergan, Porter, Baron and Jones.

After the game at Oklahoma, Saint Francis will face to face TCU for the first time in team history. The Red Flash will play a Big 12 program for the third time and for the first time since facing Texas in 2014-15. TCU's head coach Jamie Dixon will square against the Loretto team for the fifth time after he tangled with Saint Francis as the head coach at Pitt from 2002 to 2012. 

In the last two years, the squad played four games (2023-24) and five games (2024-25) on the road before its first game played at DeGol Arena. For the first time since 2022-23, the Saint Francis faithful will not have to wait until Thanksgiving week to see the Frankies at DeGol Arena when Mount St. Mary's comes to Loretto on November 11 for the 90th iteration between the two teams and third straight season it will be a non-conference game after the Mount joined the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference four years ago. Mount St. Mary's will be the first home game of a season for the first time in team history, while the Mountaineers were the Red Flash's NEC home opener three times (2001-02, 2018-19, 2020-21).

The home opener against Mount St. Mary's starts a stretch of three of four games at DeGol Arena to end the month of November.  The one road game is at Lehigh on November 18, a place the Loretto program has been victorious in its last two games. It is also the 18th straight year the two teams have squared off and the 22nd meeting overall.

Closing out the month are games against Penn State Shenango (November 23) and Franciscan (November 26). It will be the second straight year the Red Flash will face Penn State Shenango, while it will be the 42nd meeting against Franciscan and the seventh since the 2017-18 campaign.

The game against Franciscan will be the last time Saint Francis will be home for almost a month after starting the month on December with a four-game road trip at Xavier (December 1), Radford (December 7), Temple (December 14) and Florida (December 17).

xavier tidbits

The Red Flash is 4-5 against the Musketeers all-time, but did you know that Saint Francis won three of the first four meetings against Xavier from 1955-59, the first four years after Maurice Stokes graduated. Xavier was in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in the first three years, but after the Frankies lost the first matchup with Xavier, the Red Flash won the next three. The big win in this stretch might have been in 1957-58 when the Saint Francis downed the Musketeers 75-70 on the road on February 22, 1958. Both teams played in the NIT, the last time for Saint Francis before 2018-19, but Xavier ended the year winning the NIT Championship.

The other big win against Xavier was when Luke's father, Tom, was the head coach with Saint Francis taking down the Musketeers 77-73 at DeGol Arena on January 31, 1994. Xavier finished the year 22-8 and advanced to the NIT Quarterfinals. The win was considered the fifth biggest win in Saint Francis men's basketball history according to an Altoona Mirror 2020 poll. 

The game against Xavier will also have another significance as it will features two head coaches that also have fathers that were Division I head coach. As mentioned Luke's father, Tom, was the Red Flash head coach from 1992-99, while Xavier is led by Richard Pitino, who is the son of legendary college head coach Rick Pitino.

While there is lots of story lines against Xavier, the Red Flash will be facing Radford for only the second time in team history after the two teams met for the inaugural meeting last season in Loretto. The game at Temple will be the seventh meeting against the Owls and the first since the 1970-71 campaign. Saint Francis won the first two games in the series against Temple, including an 85-69 win in Stokes' senior year. It will be the second time Saint Francis will play the American Conference and the first since traveling to Cincinnati in 2014-15. The final road game of non-conference play will be against the defending national champions Florida for the second meeting in the matchup and first since 1994-95. It will be the second time Gators head coach Todd Golden will see the Flash after he was the associate head coach at San Francisco when the Loretto program made its first appearance in the Bay Area. 

against the national champions

Florida will be the first team Saint Francis will face on a schedule as the defending NCAA national champion. The Red Flash also faced Virginia in 2021 after the Cavaliers won the 2019 national title. Virginia was technically the defending NCAA national champion after winning the 2019 title with no national title game in 2020 due to COVID-19.

While Florida is the defending NCAA National Champion, Saint Francis has faced the four NIT Champions in program history after facing Holy Cross (1955), Duquesne (1956), Xavier (1959) and St. Bonaventure (1978) in the year following their title run. Holy Cross was not in the regular season, but in the NIT, and Xavier in 1959 is the only time the Frankies defeated a defending national champion.

In what is becoming a Christmas tradition, Saint Francis will end its non-conference slate against Robert Morris with the Colonials make the trek to Loretto on December 20 with the 94th iteration between the two teams. 

ncaa tournaments

Saint Francis is the defending NEC Tournament Champions and participated in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1991 last season. There are five teams on the Red Flash schedule that were also in the NCAA Tournament, including two that were also in the NCAA First Four. Mount St. Mary's and Xavier both took the floor on the following night after the Red Flash played Alabama State in Dayton and won their First Four games to move onto the NCAA First Round. Oklahoma and Florida were also in the NCAA Tournament and would have played in the second round of the tournament if Oklahoma would have defeated Connecticut in the first round. In addition, Robert Morris reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time since joining the Horizon League.  

2025-26 SAINT FRANCIS NON-CONFERENCE BREAKDOWN BY CONFERENCE

SEC
Game #1: November 3 at Oklahoma; Game #10: December 17, at Florida
Saint Francis vs. SEC:  0-9 (Florida [0-1], LSU [0-3], Ole Miss [0-2], Tennessee [0-1], Texas A&M [0-1], Vanderbilt [0-1])
Last Meeting vs. SEC: Texas A&M 81, Saint Francis 58 (December 21, 2016)
Last Win vs. SEC: NA
Current Streak vs. SEC: Lost 9

Saint Francis vs. Oklahoma 
Series Record: First Meeting 11-3-25

Saint Francis vs. Florida
Series Record: Florida leads 1-0
Series Record in Gainesville: Florida leads 1-0
Current Streak: Lost 1
First Meeting: Florida 87, Saint Francis (December 30, 1994)
Last Meeting: Florida 87, Saint Francis (December 30, 1994)
Last Saint Francis Win: NA

Big 12
Game #2: November 6, at TCU
Saint Francis vs. Big 12: 0-2 (Nebraska [0-1], Texas [0-1])
Last Meeting vs. Big 12: Texas 78, Saint Francis 46 (November 25, 2014)
Last Win vs. Big 12: NA

Saint Francis vs. TCU
Series Record: First Meeting 11-6-25

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
Game #3: November 11 Mount St. Mary's
Saint Francis vs. MAAC: 8-20 (Army [1-1], Canisius [2-2], Iona [0-4], Loyola [1-1], Mount St. Mary's [0-2], Niagara [3-6], Saint Peter's [1-4])
Last Meeting vs. MAAC: Niagara 69, Saint Francis 66 (December 14, 2024)
Last Win vs. MAAC: Saint Francis 79, Niagara 73 (November 30, 2018)
Current Streak vs. MAAC: Lost 5

Saint Francis vs. Mount St. Mary's
Series Record: Mount leads 54-35
Series Record in Loretto: Saint Francis leads 22-17
Current Streak: Lost 6
First Meeting: Saint Francis 17, Mount 15 (1915-16)
Last Meeting: Mount 66, Saint Francis 58 (November 16, 2023)
Last Saint Francis Win: Saint Francis 75, Mount 62 (February 27, 2020)

Patriot League
Game #4: November 18 at Lehigh
Saint Francis vs. Patriot League: 30-41 (American [10-12], Bucknell [11-11], Colgate [2-3], Lafayette [0-4], Lehigh [6-11], Navy [2-0])
Last Meeting vs. Patriot League: Saint Francis 88, Lehigh 78 (December 20, 1969)
Last Win vs. Patriot League: Saint Francis 88, Lehigh 78 (November 26, 2024)
Current Streak vs. Patriot League: Won 3

Saint Francis vs. Lehigh
Series Record: Lehigh leads 12-9
Series Record in Bethlehem: Lehigh leads 6-2
Current Streak: Won 2
First Meeting: Saint Francis 83, Lehigh 69 (December 30, 2023)
Last Meeting: Saint Francis 88, Lehigh 78 (November 26, 2024)
Last Lehigh Win: Lehigh 82, Saint Francis 76 (November 21, 2022)

Big East
Game #7: December 1 at Xavier
Saint Francis vs. Big East: 0-36 (Butler [0-1], Cincinnati [0-1], UConn [0-1], Georgetown [0-4], Marquette [0-1], Notre Dame [0-3], Miami [0-1], Pittsburgh [0-19], Syracuse [0-1]. Villanova [0-4])
Last Meeting vs. Big East: Georgetown 82, Saint Francis 65 (November 23, 2022)
Last Win vs. Big East: NA
Current Streak vs. Big East: Lost 36

Saint Francis vs. Xavier
Series Record: Xavier leads 5-4
Series Record in Cincinnati: Xavier leads 5-2
Current Streak: Lost 1
First Meeting: Xavier 92, Saint Francis 78 (February 10, 1956)
Last Meeting: Xavier 88, Saint Francis 61 (November 25, 1995)
Last Saint Francis Win: Saint Francis 77, Xavier 73 (January 31, 1994)

Big South 
Game #8: December 7 at Radford
Saint Francis vs. Big South: 3-4 (Liberty [1-1], Longwood [2-0], Radford [0-1], UNC Greensboro [0-2])
Last Meeting vs. Big South: Radford 79, Saint Francis 70 (December 1, 2024)
Last Win vs. Big South: Saint Francis 83, Longwood 56 (November 18, 2017)
Current Streak vs. Big South: Lost 1

Saint Francis vs. Radford
Series Record: Radford leads 1-0
Series Record in Radford: Series tied 0-0
Current Streak: Lost 1
First Meeting: Radford 79, Saint Francis 70 (December 1, 2024)
Last Meeting: Radford 79, Saint Francis 70 (December 1, 2024)
Last Saint Francis Win: NA

American Conference
Game #9: December 14 at Temple
Saint Francis vs. American Conference: 0-1 (Cincinnati [0-1])
Last Meeting vs. American Conference: Cincinnati 52, Saint Francis 37 (November 14, 2014)
Last Win vs. Big 10: NA

Saint Francis vs. Temple
Series Record: Temple leads 4-2
Series Record in Philadelphia: Temple leads 1-0
Current Streak: Lost 4
First Meeting: Saint Francis 44, Temple 23 (1923-24)
Last Meeting: Temple 84, Saint Francis 75 (December 26, 1971)
Last Saint Francis Win: Saint Francis 85, Temple 69 (February 12, 1955)

Horizon League 
Game #11: December 20 at Robert Morris
Saint Francis vs. Horizon League: 5-11 (Duquesne [0-1], Robert Morris [0-4], Xavier [1-0], Youngstown State [4-6])
Last Meeting vs. Horizon League: Robert Morris 90, Saint Francis 77 (December 21, 2024)
Last Win vs. Horizon League: Saint Francis 66, Youngstown State 65 (November 29, 2008)
Current Streak vs. Horizon League: Lost 8

Saint Francis vs. Robert Morris
Series Record: Robert Morris leads 55-38
Series Record in Loretto: Robert Morris leads 25-21
Current Streak: Lost 6
First Meeting: Saint Francis 84, Robert Morris 65 (February 11, 1977)
Last Meeting: Robert Morris 90, Saint Francis 77 (December 21, 2024)
Last Saint Francis Win: Saint Francis 86, Robert Morris 71 (February 18, 2020)

Non-Division I Opponents
Game #5: November 23 Penn State Shenango; Game #6: November 26 Franciscan

Saint Francis vs. Penn State Shenango
Series Record: Saint Francis leads 1-0
Series Record in Loretto: Saint Francis leads 1-0
Current Streak: Won 1
First Meeting: Saint Francis 107, Penn State Shenango (December 4, 2024)
Last Meeting: Saint Francis 107, Penn State Shenango (December 4, 2024)
Last Penn State Shenango Win: NA

Saint Francis vs. Franciscan
Series Record: Saint Francis leads 32-9
Series Record in Loretto: Saint Francis leads 20-3
Current Streak: Won 18
First Meeting: Saint Francis 71, Franciscan 36 (January 31, 1948)
Last Meeting: Saint Francis 104, Franciscan 47 (December 19, 2024)
Last Franciscan Win: Franciscan 64, Saint Francis 48 (January 21, 1967)