No. 11 Tennessee and No. 2 Gonzaga meet Friday night in Frisco, Texas, in the Legends of Basketball Classic. The preseason exhibition game is scheduled for a 9 p.m.
Grant Ramey
No. 11 Tennessee and No. 2 Gonzaga meet Friday night in Frisco, Texas, in the Legends of Basketball Classic. The preseason exhibition game is scheduled for a 9 p.m. Eastern Time start at Comerica Center and can be watched via Pay Per View, with money benefitting the John McClendon Foundation.
The exhibition game requires a one-time purchase for $9.99 through InDemand andPPV.com. There will be no radio broadcast for the exhibition game.Fans can also order the game through cable, satellite or telco providers, including Xfinity (channel 1201), Spectrum (channel 2100), Contour, Dish, Verizon Fios, Altice and other leading providers. The suggested retail price will be $9.99 on allPPVplatforms.
Here's what Gonzaga coach Mark Few said this week about facing the Vols:
ON WHAT HE KNOWS ABOUT THIS TENNESSEE TEAM
“Really good. Got a lot of guys back. Had an exceptional defense last year. Probably one of the best in the country. And, the looks of it, some of their guys have really improved offensively. So it should be a really, really great challenge. It will give us a good barometer here early, where we’re at, what we need to continue to work on.”
ON BALANCING TRYING TO WIN THE GAME VERSUS EXPERIMENTING WITH HIS OWN TEAM
“That’s kind of what these things are for. That’s the beauty of these (exhibition games). Obviously you’re competitive and your guys are competitive and you want to play it as a game. But we’re in the process of working through things and trying to figure out where we can be the most successful. Whether it’s offensively, defensively, lineups, all of that.”
ON HOW DIFFERENT IT WILL BE COMPARED TO A SCRIMMAGE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
“To be honest with you, those things, you always have these great plans and then you get competitive and they just turn into a game anyway. You just try to win the game, pretty much. And you weren’t supposed to talk about it. So I think the beauty of this is it’s opening it up to everybody and everybody gets to look at it. And I hope they do via the pay-per-view thing. I think that’s going to be a fun, kind of exciting way to maybe open up some avenues down the road. But yeah, I kind of envision it being that.”
ON WHAT MAKES A RICK BARNES TEAM TOUGH TO PLAY
“He’s been so different over all the years we’ve played him. Just seems like they’ve really settled in now to just being an elite defensive team. Then like I said, I think based on just a little bit, we’ve exchanged some film, they look like they’re really, really improved offensively, individually with their skills. Just their ability to make baskets at a bunch of different spots.”
ON GETTING WITH RICK BARNES TO MAKE THIS EXHIBITION GAME HAPPEN
“That was just kind of us putting it together. First just putting it together because we thought it would be great, just to kind of get yours guys excited to do it. And I’ve always found in the past it’s been good for our guys to be able to something like that, to prepare us for the schedule we’re playing. Play against that elite-level athlete, defensive pressure, high-level guys and get ready to go once our regular season starts, which we all know is going to be ridiculously hard.”
ON IF THIS IS THE POINT IN THE PRESEASON WHERE IT’S TIME TO PLAY ANOTHER TEAM, OPPOSED TO MORE PRACTICE TIME
“It is. It always gets like this. The guys are tired of going against each other. I think from a coaching standpoint, you actually want to see how people are going to attack you, how they’re going to defend you. Then we’ll have to make adjustments from that, as you go on through the season, because that will continue to happen. But yeah, it’s time. I think that’s kind of the difference between college and pro. Pro is like practice five times and start playing games, you know? And we’ve been going at it a pretty (long time) — all through the summer, all through the fall, and now this. So yeah, they’re ready to play somebody else.”
ON GONZAGA’S GUARDS MATCHING UP AGAINST TENNESSEE’S GUARDS, HOW HIS BACKCOURT WILL RESPOND TO THE CHALLENGE
“I think you answered your own question right there. I don’t know. We’ll find out. It’s great that we’re able to do this. We can all sit around and watch my guys shoot on their own and play against each other, but we play Tennessee, we’ll find out how we do in that matchup. I’m as interested as you are in how that turns out. Hard to predict.”
ON HOW MANY TICKETS TEXAS NATIVE DREW TIMME GOT FOR THE GAME
“Hey, there are still tickets available. I know we’re having this thing down in football country. But there are tickets available. Chance for Zag fans to go down and watch us live. Like I said, I think it’s really cool trying this pay-per-view. I’ve been trying to push that in some of our other areas. If this game was played in December, it would be a pretty huge TV number. I don’t know why it shouldn’t be now. People are going to watch it. Whether it counts or not, people are going to reflect back on it. It’s going to make an impression on coaches’ minds, committee members’ mines, even though it doesn’t count.”
ON THE BENEFITS OFEXHIBITIONS AND SCRIMMAGES AGAINST HIGH-LEVELCOMPETITION
“Huge. Yeah, they’ve been huge. Because, again, what you guys have brought up, we were able to ascertain how we matched up. Physically, could we handle the athleticism of a Michigan State on the glass over the years. We’ve done it with Baylor, we’ve done it with Texas. They are a really, really good barometer for the schedule that we play (in non-conference play). I think it gets our guys used to that level of talent and that level of athleticism. Most importantly is size (with) this gauntlet of games coming up here in November, early December.”
ON SANTIAGO VESCOVI AND ZAKAI ZEIGLER
“Vescovi is an old, tough, veteran kind of guard. Really, really super smart. And Zeigler is just quick on quick. There are going to be some really good challenges for us.”
