UW-Milwaukee Men's Basketball To Face Memphis in Preseason NIT
May 18, 2005
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's basketball team will play at the University of Memphis in a first-round Preseason National Invitation Tournament game to start the 2005-06 season.
The contest, one of eight first-round games in the 16-team event, is set for Nov. 15. This will mark UWM's first appearance in the Preseason NIT and the regular season debut of new head coach Rob Jeter.
The game is one of the marquee contests in the tournament's opening round, with both teams having qualified for the post-season a year ago and both teams expected to compete for their respective league crowns in 2005-06.
"It's exciting to be involved in an event like the Preseason NIT," Jeter said. "Certainly getting Memphis on the road is a very difficult draw. They have an excellent head coach in John Calipari, are very talented and athletic and are very difficult to beat at home. But this is also a great opportunity for us to get some national exposure early in the season and see how we will measure up against a top-20 team."
The Panthers reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament last season, beating Alabama and Boston College in the process. UWM returns four of five starters and nine letterwinners from that squad, which won a school-record 26 games and won the Horizon League regular season title for the second-straight year.
The Tigers finished 22-16 last season in reaching the semifinals of the post-season NIT. Memphis is already being highly-touted for next season, with ESPN's Dick Vitale ranking them 10th in his "Dazzling Dozen." The Tigers, who return five of their top eight players and add a nationally-ranked recruiting class, are expected to be one of the favorites in the realigned Conference USA.
The two schools have not met since 1975.
Other first round matchups on Nov. 15 include Army at Temple, Miami (Ohio) at Alabama and New Mexico State at UCLA. The tournament actually begins Nov. 14 with four first-round games - Boston University at Duke, Sam Houston State at Missouri, Manhattan at Seton Hall and Drexel at Princeton.
The Preseason NIT is a single-elimination tournament that continues with second round contests on Nov. 16 and 17. The winner of the UWM-Memphis game will play the winner of the Alabama-Miami (Ohio) game on Nov. 17. The remaining four teams then advance to Madison Square Garden in New York for the semifinals Nov. 23 and the finals Nov. 25.
UWM and Duke are the only two teams in the field that reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament last season, while Panthers claimed wins over two of this year's Preseason NIT participants a season ago - an overtime win at Manhattan Dec. 30 and an NCAA Tournament win over Alabama.
