Looking to attend a marquee non-conference matchup involving UConn this upcoming season?

Better hit the road.

Tough road tests highlight the non-conference schedule for the 2016-17 men's basketball season while the home lineup is void of big spotlight competition.

For the second straight season, UConn will play two old Big East Conference foes. They'll face Syracuse on Dec. 5 at Madison Square Garden in New York and visit Georgetown on Jan. 14. The Orange, who reached the Final Four last season, won last year's meeting, 79-76, in the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas on Nov. 26 while the Hoyas fell 68-62 in Hartford on Jan. 23.

The Huskies will travel to Columbus for the first time in 33 years to play Ohio State on Dec. 10.  The two teams squared off last season in Storrs, with UConn winning 75-55 on Dec. 12.

They also will compete in a loaded Maui Invitational field that includes national runner-up North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgetown, Oregon, Oklahoma State, Tennessee and Chaminade. Those teams have combined to win 14 national championships and appear in 39 Final Fours.

"It's always the best field," coach Kevin Ollie said recently about the Maui Invitational. "It's always the best field."

The Huskies have won the Maui Invitational, which runs Nov. 21-23, in two of three previous appearances and gone 8-1 overall. Their titles came in 2005 and 2010.

On the way to Hawaii, UConn will stop in Los Angeles to face West Coast Conference foe Loyola Marymount on Nov. 17. It will be the first meeting between the two schools.

It's a demanding start to the season for a young team that will rely heavily on underclassmen. Eight of the 11 scholarship players are either freshmen or sophomores.

Ollie is already preparing for the challenging road ahead.

"We've got a very, very difficult out-of-conference schedule," Ollie said. "We're going to have to have some of these young guys be ready to play some valuable minutes. I'm going to have to be tough on them and they're going to have to accept the challenge.

"Then I'm going to have to really calm myself down when they make some mistakes. I've really been trying to work on that right now."

Unfortunately for Husky fans, there's not much to get excited about as far as home non-conference opponents.

UConn opens the regular season by hosting Wagner, the Northeast Conference regular season champion, on Friday, Nov. 11, followed by a game on Nov. 14 against Northeastern, which has lost 22 of the last 23 meetings in the series.

When the Huskies return from Hawaii, they'll take on Boston University on Nov. 30. The Atlantic Sun Conference champ North Florida (Dec. 18) and Auburn (Dec. 23) visit before the American Athletic Conference play begins.

Auburn, a member of the Southeastern Conference, is expected to be improved after going 11-20 overall last year, the program's eighth straight losing season, in Bruce Pearl's second year at the helm.

It is a two-game series with Auburn, with UConn heading there next season.

As far as exhibition games, UConn hosts two Division II programs in New Haven (Oct. 30) and Southern Connecticut (Nov. 5). Former UConn standout Scott Burrell guided the Owls to 22 wins in his first year as a head coach last season.

Overall, the Huskies will play a 30-game regular season schedule — 12 non-conference and 18 AAC games. The XL Center in Hartford will host the AAC Championship tournament from March 9-12. The Huskies are the defending champions.

Game times and locations of home games will be announced at a later date.

g.keefe@theday.com