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Where is Gardner-Webb? Or whoever it is we open up against in the tournament in Vegas? Anyone know anything about them?

Gardner-Webb is in Boiling Springs, N.C. It's a small schools that plays in the Atlantic Sun Conference (formerly the Trans-America Conference). They're something like 1-8 this year, but have the 18th toughest schedule and have played very competitive games against Virginia and Clemson...on the road, of course. They're young, with only one senior on their roster and while they rely on a balanced attack, they get most of their scoring from the low post. Otis Daniels, a 6-6 soph forward and Tim Behrendorff, a 6-11 junior center from Australia both average double figures. This will be no "cupcake" for SMU.

Is this actually a "tournament"?? Everything I have read says that we play Gardner-Webb Saturday and UNLV Sunday, but no mention of that being IF SMU and UNLV win Saturday. Anyone know? Also, who is UNLV playing?

It's not technically a tournament. (It's not a tumor) I was corrected when I was at the basketball happy hour earlier this year when I called it a tournament and Dement said, "It's not a tournament." Although, he called it a tournament in the DMN himself. But no, we simply have two scheduled games that happen to be back-to-back in Las vegas. And I will be reporting back occasionally from that locale, if I can have enough time to rest my weary head.

UNLV plays West Virginia.

Dement said it's not a tournament, and then called it a tournament in the paper? Nothing like a little attention to detail.

It's not a tournament. They are calling it a "classic." Basically it's just a bunch of teams playing each other on UNLV's court.

So, okay, it's not a tournament, but the DMN categorized it as an "NCAA-exempt event." The "experimental" 3-point line wasn't even where it's supposed to be. Does this mean these two games don't technically count as regular season games? Someone please enlighten me, I am woefully ignorant in these matters.