Published: March 31, 2008 11:53 pm         

ISU basketball to tackle the Big East in ’09

DePaul, Louisville on Sycamores’ docket

TERRE HAUTE — Indiana State’s men’s basketball team has had some measure of success against Big Ten Conference foes in the last four years, claiming wins over Indiana and Purdue.

Now the Sycamores are going to see what they can do against the Big East Conference.

ISU coach Kevin McKenna confirmed that the Sycamores will play DePaul and Louisville next season. Both games will be on the road in 2009, but DePaul will come to Hulman Center in 2011.

“We’ll play them up there, but it means we get to play a Big East home opponent on our floor, which is good for our program,” said McKenna, who said he helped consummate a similar two-game series with DePaul and Creighton when he was an assistant coach with the Bluejays. “It’s a good scheduling opportunity it’s not too far away from our fans, we get the chance to play in Chicago, and we’ve been recruiting Chicago pretty hard.”

ISU will play in Louisville’s round-robin tournament, most likely in December.

ISU will play three games at Freedom Hall with a game against Louisville, who made it to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament before being beaten 83-73 by North Carolina on Saturday. Unlike DePaul, Louisville will not have a return game at Hulman Center.

ISU will play two other teams in the tournament, most likely Ohio and Lamar, though that is not confirmed. It is an exempt tournament, and though ISU will play three games, it counts as only one game as far as the NCAA is concerned.

“You’d like to play those types of games on your home floor. Louisville won’t be on our home floor, but it’s close enough for our fans to go,” said McKenna, who said the chance to play in the tourney came about via an intermediary between ISU and Louisville. “It’s a good opportunity. We get to play two programs similar to ours on a neutral floor and an elite program.”

ISU will also play at Purdue to conclude a two-for-one series that began in 2006. McKenna said that another eye-opening ISU scheduling opportunity fell through.

“We tried to play Michigan State at Conseco Fieldhouse in the Wooden Tradition, but Michigan State’s schedule was too full and they couldn’t do it. We figured it would be a nice time with the 30th anniversary [of the 1979 NCAA Championship Game between ISU and Michigan State],” McKenna said. “That would have been a great opportunity, but I respect [Michigan State] coach [Tom] Izzo and their program a lot and understand why it didn’t get done.”

McKenna said the Wooden Tradition organizers have shown an interest in ISU, but they would have to play a marquee opponent.

“They have [shown interest], but it would have to be a special game, and that was one they had an interest in,” McKenna said.

ISU still has three spots to fill on its schedule, according to McKenna. North Texas and Murray State will play return games of home-and-home series at Hulman Center. ISU will travel to Northern Illinois to complete a home-and-home after the Huskies visited Terre Haute in 2007.

ISU will also host its BracketBusters game in February. McKenna said a Division II foe will likely take up one of the remaining home slots — ISU has played Oakland City the last two seasons.

A notable absence from the schedule will be traditional nonconference foes Butler and Ball State, two of the most common opponents in ISU’s history.

According to McKenna, Butler declined a chance to resume a series between schools that have met 122 times overall. The Bulldogs would have come to Hulman Center in 2008-09 based on a rotation that had gone uninterrupted since 1978.

Ball State also turned down the Sycamores for next season. ISU was scheduled to play in Muncie in a home-away rotation that dates to 1948 and ISU wanted to have more home games on its slate. The Sycamores and Cardinals have met 123 times and the 60-year continuous series was the second-longest in school history. ISU has played Evansville every year since 1943.

Dates for the games will be announced at a later date.