Getty
The 2022-2023 NCAA men’s basketball season is kicking off this week and one of the marquee matchups is the Central Arkansas Bears taking on the Wichita State Shockers on Monday, November 7.
Note: Heavy may earn an affiliate commission if you sign up via a link on this page
The game (8 p.m. ET start time) won’t be on a regular TV channel anywhere, but everyone in the US can watch Central Arkansas vs Wichita State live on ESPN+ right here:
ESPN+ will include hundreds of live college basketball games during the 2022-23 season, dozens of other live sports, every 30-for-30 documentary and additional original content (both video and written) for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year (or $13.99 per month for a bundle of all three of ESPN+, Disney+ and Hulu).
Once signed up for ESPN+, you can watch Central Arkansas vs Wichita State live on the ESPN app or ESPN.com.
Compatible devices for the ESPN app include Roku, Roku TV, Amazon Fire TV or Firestick, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4 or 5, Xbox One or Series X/S, any device with Android TV (such as a Sony TV or Nvidia Shield), Samsung Smart TV, Oculus Go, iPhone, Android phone, iPad or Android tablet.
Central Arkansas vs Wichita State Preview
In the 2021-2022 men’s basketball season, the Central Arkansas Bears finished 11-20 overall, 709 in the Atlantic Sun conference. The Wichita State Shockers were in a similar boat, finishing 6-9 in the American Athletic Conference and 15-13 overall.
In a preseason interview with Kevin Miller, Central Arkansas head coach Anthony Boone said they hope to build on their momentum after finishing strong last year.
“For this season, hopefully we can take the momentum we had out of last season, whcih was pretty good ending the year, and build on that. We have a pretty good returning group that’s a good nucleus for the team. They’ve shown some growth in the offseason and here in the preseason and as we’ve started the season now they’ve show some pretty good growth. I think those guys are ready to help to elevate this program. We want to be really competitive,” said the coach.
He went on to say that since the University of Central Arkansas became a Division I basketball program, they haven’t had a lot of success and they want to change that.
“We know since UCA has been Division I, there hasn’t been great tradition basketball-wise. There’s been great tradition before then, in the NAIA and Divison II days, great tradition, but Division I-wise, it hasn’t been. We’re just hoping to help to build that up and I think we can take another step in that direction this year,” said Boone.
In an interview with Kansas.com, Wichita State head coach Isaac Brown said that he is looking forward to the opportunity to see what his team can do.
“I want to give the guys a lot of opportunities to play in this first game. We’re going to be running guys in and out. We want to give everybody the opportunity to play and see who can play well in a game, so that’s going to be the biggest challenge for us is getting a bunch of guys minutes in that first game,” said Brown, adding, “That was the thing I was the most proud of in the scrimmage: we got down early and they didn’t point fingers. We came together as a team and knew we had to defend at a high level to get back in the ball game and they fought back and then we executed down the stretch and played well in the last two minutes of the game. That’s just what we needed to get ready for a real game.”
The Central Arkansas vs Wichita State game is Monday, November 7 at 8 p.m. Eastern on ESPN Plus.