This appears to be true, and here is further confirmation of it--
Just posted on the UNI fan's message board, Northern Iowa Athletic Director, Rick Hartzell, was on a sports radio show today and announced that UNI's opening home game of the 2006-2007 season will be December 27, 2006 at the new McLeod Center against Bradley and that it will be televised by ESPN.
http://www.panthernation.com/showthread.php?t=5083
There has been no release from Bradley regarding their conference schedule, yet.
The new McLeod center is a brand new, 7,000 seat basketball arena constructed adjacent to and just south of the UNI-Dome. It should be a huge improvement for the basketball program at UNI which has played home games on the floor of the UNI-Dome (an arena designed for football) for most of the past many seasons. Considering there were over 8,000 fans at the UNI-Dome for the game against Bradley last year (official attendance 8074), there should be a full house, and a ticket shortage for the game Dec. 27.