Andy Kennedy is beefing up the UAB basketball schedule for its inaugural season in the American Athletic Conference with two conference champions from a season ago.

The Blazers will host both Big South regular-season and tournament champion UNC-Asheville and former C-USA rival and Sun Belt regular-season champion Southern Miss for the upcoming 2023-2024 season and Kennedy’s fourth year leading the program.

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CBS Sports Jon Rothstein was the first to report the matchups and Kennedy confirmed on his social media account.

UAB and UNC-Ashville have met twice previously with the Blazers claiming victory each time — a 79-71 win in the 2014-2015 season and a 102-77 win in the 2021-2022 season. The Bulldogs finished last season with a 27-8 overall record and appeared in its fifth NCAA tournament — falling 85-53 to 2-seed UCLA — after winning both the Big South Conference regular-season and tournament titles.

The Blazers and Southern Miss did not meet in the regular season for the first time in 27 years last season, but faced off in the first round of the NIT with UAB cruising to an 88-60 win over the regular-season Sun Belt Conference champions. UAB owns a 37-19 record in the overall series and is currently on a five-game winning streak over the Golden Eagles.

Along with home games against UNC-Asheville and Southern Miss, UAB will also participate in the 2023 Asheville Championship, Nov. 10-12, 2023, at Harrah’s Cherokee Center. Matchups have yet to be announced for a field that includes Clemson, Davidson and Maryland.

UAB returns Eric Gaines, Javian Davis, Tony Toney and Efrem “Butta” Johnson and signed a wealth of talent in the offseason. The Blazers hit the transfer portal for the likes of Arkansas’s Barry Dunning, Ole Miss sophomore James White and former Oak Mountain standout and UNC transfer WIll Shaver, and signed a star-studded JUCO class that includes three of the top 10 players in the nation.