June 29, 2009

2009-10 Lamar Men's Basketball Schedule in HTML Format

Lamar athletic officials have announced the 2009-10 men's basketball schedule that features a school-record 18 home games and contests against schools from the Big 12, Conference USA, Mid-American, Sun Belt and Western Athletic Conferences.

Among the notable non-conference games that appear are match-ups against Arkansas State, Denver, Louisiana-Lafayette, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Ohio, Rice, Texas Tech and Tulane. The Cardinals will also play host to North Carolina A&T as part of the Global Sports Invitational, with the road contests at Marshall, MTSU and Ohio comprising the remainder of the event.

Lamar opens the regular-season with a brief two-game homestand against Huston-Tillotson and Texas-Pan American, Nov. 13 and 16, respectively. Then the Cards will embark on the first of two non-conference road trips as they will play at MTSU, Texas Tech, Ohio and Marshall in a span of seven days, beginning with the Blue Raiders on Nov. 19. All told, the trip will cover eight days and approximately 3,600 miles.

LU returns home to face North Carolina A&T at the end of the Thanksgiving week before making its longest trip of the season, out to Denver and Hawaii the first week of December. The Denver contest on Dec. 2 will mark the fourth-consecutive season a Cardinal team has played in the Mountain time zone. The subsequent game against the Warriors on Dec. 6 will be the first trip to the nation's 50th state since the 2003-04 season and fifth in school history.

The Cardinals will then open a six-game homestand with Louisiana College on Dec. 9, the Wednesday before final exams. LU will return from a ten-day break to face Louisiana-Lafayette on Dec. 19 in what will be the Rajin Cajuns' first visit to Southeast Texas since 1998. The teams began a five-year series last season in Lafayette where the Cardinals claimed a 78-68 decision. LU will then host Rice on Dec. 23 and close out the 2009 calendar year with St. Gregory's on Dec. 30.

Lamar will open the new year against Tulane on Jan. 2 and long-time rival Arkansas State on Jan. 4. The Cards and Red Wolves have met 76 times with LU holding a 43-33 lead. Lamar has won the last three in the series dating back to the 1998 Sun Belt Tournament.

After opening Southland Conference play at Southeastern Louisiana on Jan. 9, the Cards welcome Texas-Arlington and McNeese State to Beaumont. Those two games will conclude a skein where LU plays eight of nine games at home. Lamar will face SLC West Division foes Sam Houston State, UTA, Texas-San Antonio, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Texas State twice each, while making road trips to Nicholls State and Northwestern State. They will also meet Central Arkansas and Stephen F. Austin at home.

The conference tournament returns to the Merrill Center in Katy, March 10-13, for the third-consecutive year with the top eight teams from the regular-season qualifying for the right to earn the league's automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.

The Cardinals will play games in four different time zones with 28 of the 32 coming in the Central.