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IT'S TIME
FOR OHIO BASKETBALL:
MEN'S 1999-2000 SCHEDULE
ATHENS,
Ohio -- Ohio University announced its 1999-2000 men's
basketball schedule. The Bobcat slate features a tough
non-conference schedule that includes a trip to the Rainbow
Classic in Honolulu in late December.
Ohio opens
the regular season at home against Cleveland State on
Saturday, November 20. The game is a doubleheader; the women
begin the evening at 6 p.m. playing against Evansville, and
the men will begin play at 8 p.m. George Washington and
Central Florida will visit the Convocation Center in other
home non-conference action. The Bobcats opened this year's
action on November 6 and 14 with a pair of exhibition
doubleheaders with the women's basketball team. The men won
both exhibition games; the women won their first, but lost
the second game.
Ohio's
road slate features a neutral game with Princeton in Nova
Scotia in late November and trips to West Virginia and
Portland in December. The Bobcats travel to the Gazette
Hawkeye Classic in early December to face Clyde Drexler's
Houston team before playing either Iowa or Texas Southern.
Late
December brings a trip to Honolulu for the Outrigger Hotels
Rainbow Classic. The eight-team tournament features Gonzaga,
Oregon, Wake Forest, Bradley, Colorado, Hawaii and
Villanova. The last non-conference trip of the season is a
midnight matchup at Cincinnati in mid-January.
The
Mid-American Conference schedule kicks off for Ohio at
Eastern Michigan on December 8. The first home MAC game will
be against Toledo on Saturday, December 18. The MAC
tournament begins on Wednesday, March 1 with first-round
games at campus sites. The quarterfinals, semifinals and
championship game will be held at the Gund Arena in
Cleveland March 5-8.
Head coach
Larry Hunter explained that his team is excited about the
challenging schedule. "This is a schedule that the coaching
staff and players are excited about. There are many
tremendous challenges in it, but we will have a veteran
team. It is also a schedule with a lot of opportunity and
our early season games will prepare us for the MAC battles
in January and February.
"It's one
of our most demanding schedules ever. We are playing a
number of teams that are going to be nationally ranked. This
follows our policy of playing some of the best teams in the
country every year. We will have a number of television
games, including at least one national game and will play
ranked clubs and exempted games. It gives us more stretches
of a lot of travel with little rest that will test the depth
and character and perseverance of our players."
Larry
Hunter is entering his 11th season with the Bobcats. He is
165-124 in 10 seasons at Ohio, ranking in the top 10 in MAC
history for coaching victories. Ohio returns six
letterwinners and three starters from the 1998-99 squad that
finished 18-10.
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