IU, Purdue to host season openers Nov. 13
Indiana opens its basketball season Nov. 13 against Howard at Assembly Hall, the first of eight non-conference home games.
IU starts Big Ten play at home on New Year’s Eve against Michigan, and will resume playing Purdue twice: Feb. 4 in Bloomington and March 2, 3 or 4 in West Lafayette.
IU’s only non-conference road trips with be to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to play in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tipoff and Madison Square Garden to face Pittsburgh in the Jimmy V. Classic.
IU will play Michigan State (at home) and Penn State (on the road) once.
Ten IU games will air on national television, the majority on ESPN or ESPN2.
Meanwhile, Purdue will open its basketball season Nov. 13 against visiting Cal State Northridge, one of seven non-conference home games that also includes Wake Forest (Dec. 1) and West Virginia (Jan. 1).
“We’re excited about our schedule for the 2009-10 season,” coach Matt Painter said in a release. “We feel like we’ve got some great games in the non-conference portion of the schedule that will help prepare our guys for the rigors of the Big Ten season. We also feel like we have some great games on the home-slate for our fans, which is always important.”
The Boilers open Big Ten play on Dec. 29 at Iowa. Purdue will play Indiana twice and Northwestern and Michigan once in the 18-game Big Ten season.
“The Big Ten is going to be as good as it’s been in a number of years,” Painter said. “We have a lot of teams returning experienced players. There will be no easy games on the schedule once we get into league play. I think we have a number of teams who feel like they can make a run at winning the league and advancing in the NCAA Tournament.”
They will play 11 times on the Big Ten Network and 12 times on the ESPN family of networks.
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