The ever-shifting schedule for Arizona's men's basketball team continued to see changes Monday as the Wildcats announced their yearly home meeting against rival Arizona State would be moving dates.

The two teams have been scheduled to play in the last game of the regular season at McKale Center on March 6, but the game is being moved up several weeks and will now take place next Monday (Jan. 25) with tip off set for 9 p.m. MST.

The move will open up the entire final week of the season giving both teams an opportunity to make up games that have been postponed because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The Wildcats had one conference game postponed after its road game against Oregon earlier this month was not played because of coronavirus issues for the Ducks that forced the program to pause its team activities.

UA also has a nonconference game that it can play at some point as well since it has only played six contests against opponents from outside the Pac-12 this season.

The game against ASU moving up from March 6 to next Monday also means the Wildcats will play the Sun Devils in back-to-back games with the two teams scheduled to meet in Tempe this Thursday night.

UA head coach Sean Miller had previously said his team was looking into scheduling its remaining nonconference game for Monday night before making the trip to Tempe on Thursday, but that was ruled out on Friday and the Wildcats will play just one game this week.

"We want to play our full allotment of nonconference games," Miller said last week after Arizona's road win over Oregon State when asked about the possibility of scheduling a nonconference game Monday night. "It's not easy to do because the travel. We're gonna only play a game if it's local or at home. We have a couple windows and both Arizona State weeks offer us that window.

"So, we might take advantage of it."

One thing that Miller mentioned last week is that a game against a nonconference opponent at this stage would have to be cleared through the Pac-12 so not as to interfere with any changes the conference would be making to the schedule.

That, of course, happened Monday with the change to the Wildcats' home game against Arizona State leaving some uncertainty about the future of that remaining nonconference game.

For now, UA is set to play the Sun Devils a few nights apart with Thursday's meeting in Tempe set for a 7 p.m. tip off on ESPN before Monday night's late 9 p.m. start at McKale Center.

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