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Davidson Announces 2009-10 Men’s Basketball Schedule
10/1/2009 11:29:08 PM | Men's Basketball
DAVIDSON, N.C. - Fourteen home games, holiday tournaments in New York City and Charleston and contests against perennial power Gonzaga and preseason top-25 program Butler highlight the Davidson men's basketball schedule, announced by coach Bob McKillop today.
“The 2009-10 schedule is aggressive and exciting for our team and for our fans because the challenges will be extraordinary,” said McKillop. “Our non-conference schedule will expose us to every region in the country against some traditionally outstanding programs, and from top to bottom, the Southern Conference could be the best it has been in many years.”
All 14 home games will be played in Belk Arena, including non-conference games against Rhode Island (Nov. 28), Penn (Dec. 28) and UMass (Dec. 30). The 'Cats have played the Rams just once, a Davidson victory in the 1966 NCAA?Tournament. UMass makes its second trip to Belk Arena since 2005, while Penn (Dec. 28) and Davidson resume a series that dates back to 1956.
The 'Cats will spend the weekend before Thanksgiving in a familiar locale by traveling to South Carolina for the Charleston Classic in Carolina First Arena. The Red and Black will face South Florida for the second time in school history in the first round Nov. 19, and play either South Carolina or La Salle in their second contest of the three-day tourney. A meeting against the Explorers would be Davidson's first, while the Wildcats and Gamecocks have played 65 times in a series that dates back to 1909.
Following a pair of home games the week of Thanksgiving, the 'Cats head right back to Charleston to open Southern Conference play against two South Division favorites The Citadel (Dec. 3) and College of Charleston (Dec. 5), both of which are coming off of 20-win seasons.
From there, Davidson will travel across the country to play Gonzaga in the Battle in Seattle in KeyArena Dec. 12. Davidson and Gonzaga have met just once on the hardwood, an 82-76 Wildcat victory in the 2008 NCAA Tournament, which ignited the 'Cats' memorable Elite Eight run.
“We had an experience like this two years ago when we played UCLA in Anaheim,” said McKillop. “The Battle in Seattle provides us with the same opportunity - a great city, against a great program and in a great venue. Gonzaga is one of the great programs in the country because they are one of the most consistently successful programs in the country.”
Davidson will play in the Holiday Festival, the nation's longest-running holiday tournament, Dec. 20-21, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Cornell, Hofstra and St. John's join Davidson in the tournament, and the Wildcats will take on Cornell in their first contest, their first meeting in school history against the Big Red.
It will be a homecoming for McKillop, who played high school basketball at Chaminade on Long Island and college basketball at Hofstra. He began his coaching career at Holy Trinity High School and coached at Long Island Lutheran before coming to Davidson in 1989.
“Madison Square Garden is perhaps the greatest stage in the world, and this will provide a significant challenge for us as we continue to work towards being a consistently successful program,” said McKillop.
Davidson will host Lenoir-Rhyne in an exhibition game Nov. 7 in Belk Arena before opening the regular season at Butler, considered a preseason top-15 program by many prognosticators, Nov. 14. The game will be in historical Hinkle Fieldhouse, the largest basketball arena in the United States when it was constructed in 1928 and the site of the 1954 Indiana State Championship game depicted in the movie “Hoosiers.” The scenes of the famous championship game were shot in Hinkle in 1985.
SoCon North Division foes Samford (Jan. 4) and Appalachian State (Jan. 9, televised on SportsSouth) will open Davidson's league home schedule. Western Carolina, picked by some preseason publications to win the North Division, visits Belk Arena Jan. 20, while College of Charleston and The Citadel play at Davidson Jan. 28 and 30, respectively.
The Southern Conference Tournament will return to Charlotte, N.C., for the first time since 1971. The men's games start March 5 in Bojangles Coliseum, and the semifinals and finals will be in Time Warner Cable Arena.
All told, five teams that finished the 2008-09 season with RPIs in the top-110 in the country, including two in the top-25, are on the Wildcats' slate, according to the NCAA's RPI ratings.
Davidson returns 10 letterwinners and two starters from last year's team, which posted a 27-8 record and made a postseason appearance for the fifth straight campaign, advancing to the NIT second round. Davidson tips off the season with A Night with the 'Cats, celebrating the beginning of basketball practice, Oct. 16.
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