Three WCC Teams Scheduled to Play in ESPN Tip-Off Marathon

Last night on twitter, the ESPN College Basketball account was tweeting out the schedule for the 2013 College Basketball Tip-Off Marathon during the games corresponding start time’S on November 11th.  Much to the elation to fans of WCC Basketball, three WCC teams are scheduled to play in the marathon, creating even more excitement to the start of the college basketball season.

• At 4 PM PST, the Gonzaga Bulldogs will welcome the Colorado State Rams into the Kennel for an early marquee non-conference matchup. The Rams have just signed there head coach, Larry Eustachy, to a contract extension and believe that he can lead the Rams to more success in the future. Colorado State was absolutely dismembered by the eventual champion Louisville Cardinals in the second round of the NCAA tournament last season, but not a lot of teams had a lot of success against the Cardinals anyway. The Rams are faced with the challenge or replacing there top five leading scorers, who all graduated. Although the Rams are a little depleted this season talent wise, a Larry Eustachy coached team is always a tough one. The game will be televised on ESPNU. 
• BYU will be taking an early trip to the Bay Area to take on the Stanford Cardinal, which is scheduled to tip-off at 8 PM PST. For a more indepth preview, read this previously post article here.
• Saint Mary’s will take on the Akron Zips at Mckeon Pavilion for the midnight game for the ESPN tip-off marathon, giving WCC fans a midnight snack of sorts. The Zips lost two of there three leading scorers, Alex Abreu and Zeke Marshall, and are looking for someone to step up as a primary scorer. There frontcourt of Nick Harney and Demetrius Treadwell will be a tough matchup for the Gaels. The Zips lack of height will not matchup well with Saint Mary’s Center Brad Waldow, who seems poised for a great season.

It is great to see so many WCC teams getting prime time action. Although the College Basketball Season is nearly 3 months away, news like this add to the preseason excitement for the next college basketball season. This is about the time where the die-hard college basketball fans- including myself- start counting the days until the beginning of the season. Thankfully, we have a lot of high quality matchups to look forward to.