The Jacey Brooks era will open on Nov. 3 when the NIU women’s basketball team heads to Southern Mississippi.

The new coach’s first game was announced on Friday as the university released the nonconference schedules for both the men’s and women’s programs. The schedule for the teams’ final year in the Mid-American Conference was released earlier this year.

Brooks was named coach of the program in April, shortly after helping Buffalo reach the title game of the WNIT as an assistant coach.

Her first home game will be against future Horizon League foe Milwaukee on Nov. 7. The schedule features one major conference team with a Dec. 7 trip to Iowa State.

They’ll only play two nonconference games at home after Milwaukee. They host Western Illinois on Nov. 11 and Chicago State on Nov. 24.

The Huskies will face Brooks’ former Buffalo club twice. The Bulls are the Huskies’ first conference road game on Jan. 7 after a Jan. 3 home date against Ball State opens conference play. Their last MAC home game is March 4 against Buffalo, then their final regular-season MAC game is March 7 at Bowling Green.

The men open the season at home on Nov. 3 against Louisiana-Monroe. On Nov. 7 they hit the road to battle Wisconsin, then three days later are in Phoenix to battle Grand Canyon. It’s the first game against Wisconsin since 2002.

Other home non-conference games are Nov. 13 against Benedictine, Nov. 29 against Bellarmine, Dec. 2 against Lindenwood and Dec. 16 against East-West University.

NIU will also head to Loyola Chicago on Nov. 21 to face the Ramblers for the first time since a 55-49 win in Chicago in 2013.

The Huskies’ final season of MAC play opens up with two home games, Dec. 20 against Central Michigan and Dec. 30 against Buffalo. Their final MAC home game is March 3 against Kent State and final regular-season MAC game is March 6 at Akron.

Complete schedules are available on the NIU athletics website.