The Citadel’s 2009-10 basketball “guarantee” games

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

It’s the first of July, so naturally I’m going to briefly blog about college basketball…

About a month ago Jeff Hartsell wrote an article in The Post and Courier detailing The Citadel’s budget for its department of athletics.  Among other things, he mentioned:

The two guarantee games The Citadel’s football team played at Clemson and Florida last season certainly helped with the 2009 bottom line, boosting football revenues to $1.5 million…

…By NCAA rule, the football team — the department’s largest revenue-producing program — is allowed to play only 11 games next season (the Bulldogs played 12 in 2009). Only five of those games will be at home, and only one will be a big-money guarantee game, at North Carolina on Sept. 5. There’s also a road game at Princeton that will require a $59,000 airplane flight (a bus ride was deemed too long).

All of that adds up to about $420,000 less in football revenue next year than in 2009, money that has to be made up elsewhere.

Where? The Citadel’s basketball team will play three guarantee games next year, boosting basketball revenue by more than $275,000…

Since that was written, I had wondered about those basketball guarantee games.  I know that The Citadel was still looking for at least one guarantee game as late as mid-June (and is possibly still looking for one, I suppose).  Well, on Wednesday morning Ed Conroy sent a Twitter message that read:

Schedule for next year coming together, possible trips to Texas & Missouri. It should be a very challenging but exciting schedule.

Edit (8/5):  it may be that the reference to Texas is actually about a game against Texas A&M (not UT-Austin).  The game against the Aggies has been confirmed by that school.

Edit (8/30):  Instead of Missouri, The Citadel will be playing Missouri State.  The Bulldogs are also playing West Virginia.

So those may be two of the three games (assuming there are only three).  I don’t know if a game against Clemson or South Carolina would be considered a “guarantee” game, but assuming the Bulldogs play one or the other of those schools, which is fairly typical for The Citadel in any given year, and also assuming that the expected home game against Michigan State comes to pass (part of a three-for-one deal, I believe), then The Citadel will indeed have a very challenging slate of non-conference games.

It’s not official yet, of course.  As it happens, The Citadel has never played Texas or Missouri in hoops (I’m not sure the Bulldogs have faced either school in any athletic competition, actually).  The Citadel is 1-4 alltime against current Big XII schools, with the lone victory a 62-61 decision over Texas A&M in 1971.  The Bulldogs lost three games to Nebraska in the early 1990s, and also dropped a much-closer-than-expected game to Kansas in 1987 (74-71).

That win over Texas A&M is one of two for Bulldog basketball squads against Lone Star State opponents, having also defeated Southwestern University in 2003.  The Citadel has also played Rice twice (1972 and 1973), losing both times, so all told the Bulldogs are 2-2 against teams from Texas.  As far as I can tell, The Citadel has never played a basketball game against a school from the state of Missouri.

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