A matchup between Green Hope and Athens Drive on Nov. 23 featured likely the top two girls basketball teams in the Tri-Nine Conference.

But it was only the second game of the year for Athens and the third for Green Hope -- an early date for a contest that could have such an importance in the conference championship picture.

A day later, Apex and Lee County's boys basketball teams experienced the same. Picked 1-2 in the Tri-Nine Conference, the Cougars and Yellow Jackets faced each other in the season's second week.

In wrestling, eight Tri-Nine teams squared off against one another in the season's first dual-meet.

With Holly Springs joining the league, teams have to play conference foes much earlier in the season.

In past years, teams often played all their nonconference games before opening conference play around winter break. With 14 conference games taking up the 20-game schedule for basketball, schools don't have the luxury of out-of-conference tune-ups.

It leaves coaches pining for more time to be with their players before Tri-Nine play.

"It'd be nice," Fuquay-Varina boys basketball coach Randy Barrow said of having more non-conference games.

Barrow couldn't get down on his team for too long after dropping its conference opener to Cary. "We've got a conference game next week too, so we've got to get ready for that."

If a team from another local conference gets off to a slow start, it won't be hindered in terms of the conference race. However, such a turnaround will be much harder in the Tri-Nine.

Five of Cary High's first six games are all in conference.

"It's very [unusual]," Cary forward Austin Brannen said. "Last year I was still getting adjusted to the team and everything."

For the Imps, who notched a conference win over Fuquay in their second game of the year, the schedule meant having to quickly mobilize for the upcoming season. That can be hard in a sport like basketball, where often coaches are asked to re-sort their rosters and make more cuts after football season ends.

Perhaps no local team had to go through that as much as Middle Creek, which had two starters still playing football through its first two games.

For Mustangs boys basketball coach David Kushner, it's a yearly obstacle.

"We were in a difficult situation this year and we could be in an even worse situation next year. I won't be able to field a team until football is done. All three of my players who don't play football will have graduated," Kushner said.

Middle Creek, without five of its players, lost its conference opener against Holly Springs 57-52 in a game that was tied with 20 seconds to go.

"It doesn't make much sense for the teams that have had successful football seasons to be affected the way we have been in basketball," Kushner said, who favors starting basketball conference play only after the football championship.

Girls basketball also deals with the same problems with the conference schedule, but without having to worry about late additions from the rest of the fall sports, which wrap up in early November at the latest.

Wrestling often includes football players as well, but the effect isn't as severe due to the spacing out of conference matches. Teams wrestle just one conference dual-team match per week.