Nevertheless, the Toppers arent taking the upcoming season. And the schedule lightly, with the release of their 2008-09 schedule, released today.

WKU will play 29 total games in the regular season before travelling to Hot Springs, Ark. for the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. If need be, it will play the opening round at a determined campus site.

I think that considering that, we lost our top two scorers, lost four players that were probably in the top six on our team and to add this amount of quality opponents, you add into that equation the road factor with a young team, new players, Im very excited, coach Ken McDonald said. This was an aggressive schedule and people will view this as an aggressive schedule. The RPI for this schedule will be low. Itll be very aggressive. Im excited about that. Obviously, youre always a little apprehensive. You dont know, in a first year, how the players are gonna respond to a new system and a different direction. There are some things that you kinda worry about, but I rolled the dice and Im gonna tend to be aggressive with scheduling and kinda heard that that was something that the fans kinda wanted and I hear those types of thoughts. Im sensitive to that.

McDonald said that one of the keys to its scheduling was to find more than just one-tie games. The Toppers were able to secure at least home and home deals with multiple teams. WKU has two-year deals with Houston, Tulane, Murray State, Evansville and Mississippi State, all of whom will visit Diddle Arena next year. Some of those series have the possibility to be extended to four years.

The Toppers neutral-site matchup with Louisville in Nashville is part of a four year series that will have WKU traveling to Louisville in 2009-10 and 2011-12 and the Cardinals playing in Diddle Arena in the 2010-11 season.

My whole thing was, whats gonna prepare this team to win this conference and whats gonna prepare this team to win the weekend tournament at the end of the year, McDonald said. To me, a team thats tested, thats gone out on the road and played an SEC team, thats played some Conference USA teams, that has had a chance to play an ACC team, that team is gonna be more ready to do the things that we need to do at the end of the year. It was in my thoughts some, about lightening up the schedule and trying to have a little more success, but that wasnt important to me, as important as getting this team ready.

Midnight Madness, when the Toppers can officially practice will be on Friday, Oct. 17. McDonald said the team will have a scrimmage with other activities planned for fans.

McDonald said he has been pleased with the team so far in the off-season.

We have some stuff to work on, he said. The players though, their energy and attitudes have been great. Weve been handling our business with a championship effort that we talk about a lot. Im very pleased. I like my crew that Ive got out there. We have some building to do and we have some bonding to do as a team and everythings getting better every day, so Im happy.

2008-09 schedule

Oct. 31 (Fri) LCC International University (exh.)
Nov. 8 (Sat) Bellarmine (exh.)
Nov. 15 (Sat) at Houston
Nov. 18 (Tue) Campbellsville
Nov. 22 (Sat) at Murray State
Nov. 26 (Wed) Southern Illinois
Nov. 30 (Sun) (1) vs. Louisville
Dec. 2 (Tue) Georgia
Dec. 6 (Sat) at Tulane
Dec. 13 (Sat) at Evansville
Dec. 18 (Thu) *at South Alabama
Dec. 21 (Sun) Alabama A&M
Dec. 28 (Sun) (2) vs. Florida St.
Jan. 1 (Thu) *Troy
Jan. 3 (Sat) *UALR
Jan. 5 (Mon) at Mississippi State
Jan. 8 (Thu) *at Florida International
Jan. 10 (Sat) *at Florida Atlantic
Jan. 15 (Thu) *(3)Middle Tennessee
Jan. 17 (Sat) * New Orleans
Jan. 22 (Thu) *Louisiana-Lafayette
Jan. 24 (Sat) *at Denver
Jan. 29 (Thu) *at Arkansas State
Jan. 31 (Sat) *North Texas
Feb. 5 (Thu) *at Louisiana-Monroe
Feb. 7 (Sat) *South Alabama (ESPN2)
Feb. 14 (Sat) *at Troy
Feb. 19 (Thu) *at UALR
Feb. 21 (Sat) *Florida International
Feb. 26 (Thu) *Florida Atlantic
Feb. 28 (Sat) *at Middle Tennessee
Mar. 4 (Wed) Sun Belt Conf. Tournament first round at campus sites
Mar. 8-10 (Sun-Tue) (4) Sun Belt Conference Tournament

*denotes conference game
All home games in bold
(1) Sommet Center, Nashville, Tenn.
(2) MetroPCS Orange Bowl Classic, Miami, Fla.
(3) BB&T Classic
(4) SBC Tourney at Hot Springs, Ark.

Posted on September 23rd, 2008 by admin
Filed under: College basketball news