Jackson Free Press

College basketball begins this Friday, Nov. 11, and fans will have plenty of hoops to feast on throughout the day and weekend. Between games on cable TV and ones available for streaming, you might need to add a few more TV, laptops and tablets to your viewing area.

Games begin at 9 a.m. central time when Robert Morris University hosts Point Park University in women’s basketball. Two hours later, the men’s season begins with Milligan College at Middle Tennessee State University. Neither game is on TV or ESPN3, but I would bet my bottom dollar that they can be some how.

Here is a list of the men’s and women’s teams from the six Division I universities in Mississippi and their first game of the season.

The first team that tips off this season is the men of Jackson State University at 12:15 p.m., when the Tigers go against Xavier University of Louisiana. The Jackson State women’s team plays Blue Mountain College at 6 p.m.

Neither JSU game is on TV, but the Tigers are at home. Fans should be excited about this season after the team finished strong last season.

The University of Mississippi women’s team takes its home floor for the first game of the 2016-2017 season at 2:30 p.m. against Southeastern Louisiana University. Fans can watch it on SECN+. At 6 p.m., the Rebels men’s team takes on Tennessee Martin University, which will also be on SECN+.

If you don’t know, games on that network are not on TV but are streamed online, which is annoying since my cable has two alternative SECN channels that are scheduled to show diddley squat on Friday.

Mississippi State University women’s season begins at 6 p.m. in the Maine Tipoff Tournament against Villanova University. For some reason, this game is not on TV, but the MSU website has a link for listening to it.

The MSU men are showing on the SECN+ at home against Norfolk State University at 7 p.m. Meanwhile, Mississippi Valley State University men’s team starts the season at 7 p.m. on the road against Northwestern University. The game will not be broadcasted on TV.

The University of Southern Mississippi men’s team hosts Tougaloo at 7 p.m. for the season opener, but this game is not on TV. Alcorn State University men’s team hits the road to face Loyola University Chicago on ESPN3.

Alcorn State University women’s team begins the season at 8 p.m. on the road against Grand Canyon University, and the game is also not on TV. That is it for Mississippi team’s Friday games, but fans can watch plenty of other games on if none of those catch their eye.

The USM women’s team doesn’t take the floor until Sunday, Nov. 13, at 2 p.m. when the Golden Eagles host New Orleans University. This is the only game with a Mississippi team on Sunday, but it is not on TV.

The MVSU women’s team …

This falls in the can't-make-it-up column.

Most of you know that Mitchell Moore of Campbell's Bakery, who is straight, and Eddie Outlaw of William Wallace Salon, who is gay, and others started the amazing "If You're Buying, We're Selling" campaign. They want Mississippi business owners to put stickers in their windows to indicate that they don't discriminate, in response to SB 2681, Mississippi's version of the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act." (See lots of business owners with the icon in their ads in this week's JFP, too.)

So, the religious right is apparently not happy with the international media coverage the campaign is getting -- and from Mississippi, which is supposed to be their wheelhouse, you know. They really didn't like it when Emily Pettus of the AP (the JFP's next-door neighbors) did a story about this that was picked up by many outlets.

In response, they went on a PR tear to take back the messaging. Greg Scott, who tweets at @adfmedia, led the way, tweeting this week in response to the AP story: "Sticker folks protest imaginary law .@AP bows false narrative, RFRA not "vaguely written," no threat to "=treatment" http://bit.ly/QEU2El

Curious, I did some research. Turns out, Scott is the VP for media communications for Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly Alliance Defense Fund), a nonprofit group founded in 1994 by extreme-right and vocally anti-gay leaders including James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association. (Interestingly, Mississippi's Judge Charles Pickering is also on the board.)

Not to be outdone, the American Family Association, an alliance co-founder, also blasted the sticker campaign on a Christian "news" site, which is part of the American Family News Network, which is part of the ... American Family Association. "It's not really a buying campaign, but it's a bully campaign," said Buddy Smith, executive vice president of Tupelo-based American Family Association, "and it's being carried out by radical homosexual activists who intend to trample the freedom of Christians to live according to the dictates of scripture."

The Southern Poverty Law Center includes the alliance (and AFA) on its list of a dozen groups that drive the "religious right's anti-gay crusade." On its website, it brags that its "attorneys have successfully defended marriage as the union between one man and one woman in over 40 cases nationwide."

SPLC indicates that the alliance was established in the early 1990s in response to gay-rights battles in the courts—which it clearly believes is the "principal" threat to religious freedom. ADF President Alan Sears and Vice President Craig Osten wrote " The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom," which ties homosexuality to pedophilia and other "disordered sexual behavior."

SPLC states: "The ADF has also mounted legal challenges to gay military service, marriage, adoption and foster-parenting, as well as to domestic partner benefits around the nation. It trains other attorneys 'to battle the radical homosexual …