Green Bay & Valparaiso to Appear on ESPN's Eighth Annual College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon

ESPN announced the schedule for its eighth annual College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon on Tuesday morning and two Horizon League schools - Green Bay and Valparaiso - will play in the 24 hour event.

Green Bay will tip-off at 6 a.m. ET at East Tennessee State, while Valparaiso will play at 10 a.m. at Rhode Island. Both games will be televised nationally on ESPN2.“The tip-off marathon is one of those events that college basketball fans really enjoy and get excited for. It gets the college basketball season off and running and we’re happy to be able to be a part of that, especially because we’re going to be televised live on ESPN2. The time of the game presents a huge challenge of course, but our guys will be excited and ready to go that morning,” Green Bay head coach Linc Darner said.

The game is part of three road games in six days for Green Bay, which begins with a trip to Stanford to open the season. The Phoenix will return to Green Bay before traveling south to Johnson City, Tenn., to take on ETSU at the crack of dawn.

This year’s appearance in the Tip Off Marathon marks Valpo’s second all-time appearance in the event, as the Crusaders previously played Northern Illinois in November of 2012 – a 69-46 Valpo victory. This will be the fourth meeting all-time between Rhode Island and Valpo, with the first being the most famous – a matchup in the Sweet 16 of the 1998 NCAA Tournament which the Rams won 74-68. The Crusaders have won the two most recent meetings in 2000 (69-62) and 2001 (68-43), however.

As they did when they competing in the 2012 Tip Off Marathon, Valpo returns all five starters heading into the 2015-16 campaign. The Crusaders, who just concluded a foreign tour in Canada, bring back nearly 99% of their scoring from last year’s team and add two transfers, one freshman and one returning redshirt to the mix as well.

All telecasts will also be available through WatchESPN, accessible online at WatchESPN.com, on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app, and streamed on televisions through Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360 or Xbox One to fans who receive their video subscription from an affiliated provider.