South Plains College unveils 2026-27 men’s basketball schedule opener

South Plains College’s 2026-27 men’s basketball slate opens with Lamar Community College on Nov. 29, giving the Texans an early nonconference checkpoint before NJCAA Region 5 play tightens the standings. The schedule page lists South Plains at 0-0 overall and 0-0 in conference play, but the first three dates already sketch the shape of a season built around travel, event settings and national-level measuring sticks.

The next key stop comes Dec. 4, when Hill College visits Levelland, Texas, for the Texan Classic. Hill’s 2025-26 schedule page showed a 7-22 record, a 3-11 conference mark and a six-game losing streak, so that home date gives South Plains a chance to settle in against a familiar junior-college opponent before the competition profile rises again. Two weeks later, the Texans head to Las Vegas for a neutral-site game against North Idaho College on Dec. 18 at the Turkanian Classic, a setting that shifts the focus from home-court rhythm to playing cleanly in a showcase environment.

That opening stretch matters because South Plains has long been judged well beyond its own campus. The program has national titles in 2008 and 2012, and NJCAA coverage recorded the Texans winning their fourth championship in 2024 by beating Clarendon 100-98. In the 2012 title game, Marshall Henderson’s 32 points powered South Plains past Northwest Florida State 81-68, a reminder that the Texans’ standard has repeatedly been set on the sport’s biggest junior-college stage. A 2012 district championship page also listed South Plains at 32-0 during that postseason run.

The recent records attached to the program reinforce why the calendar draws attention before a single tipoff. South Plains was listed at 27-6 in the 2024 district championship cycle, 9-3 overall and 8-1 in conference play on a 2025-26 Region 5 page, and 20-6 on an NJCAA Division I rankings listing. North Idaho enters the season at 0-0 overall and 0-0 in conference play, leaving the Las Vegas matchup as an early chance for South Plains to test itself against a fresh national opponent while the season is still taking shape.