Back in July, I had this to say about the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Classic, which is returning to Springfield, Massachusetts after a long absence.
{T}he Hall of Fame Tip-Off, which last year was played in the non-conventional round-robin format, just with two five-team tournaments culminating in St. Louis, returns to Springfield, Mass. as an eight-team event. The reconfigured event will work like the Chicago and two Las Vegas events, with two four-team brackets. Bradley, UMass, New Mexico State, and USC will make up the marquee bracket, while Rider and three others will play in the second bracket.
Despite the woefully out-of-date description on the event's homepage, the planned two-bracket setup has been discarded. After the jump, I'll discuss the new schedule, which takes the "Early Season Event Convolution Trophy" from the on hiatus Glenn Wilkes Classic.
Long story short, the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Classic's organizers could never get an eighth team to complete the two brackets. Sacred Heart was listed as a participant as recently as a week ago, but the Pioneers, who would have been the eighth team, aren't listed on the Classic website.
Now, the seven confirmed teams will play a series of seemingly random games, and since not everyone's schedule is out yet (I'm looking squarely at you Rider and New Mexico State), it's not totally clear who is playing against whom outside of Springfield.
I can tell you (thanks to the USC and TCU schedules) that the Trojans visit the Horned Frogs on November 29, a week after the Springfield games. USC also hosts Rider.
Loyola Marymount is scheduled to play just three games, not four: one at Bradley and two in Springfield. One of those is against Division II Dowling. That's no way to treat a team looking to challenge in the West Coast Conference.
Like the Lions, Bradley and UMass are also slated to play DII teams -- the Braves host Texas A&M-Kingsville, while the Minutemen entertain American International.
With seven teams, proceedings at the building formerly known as the Springfield Civic Center have been stretched from two days to three. Saturday will feature a quadruple-header, with the Dowling-LMU game serving as the appetizer for three all-Division I matchups. Sunday sees UMass taking the day off, with the other six Division I schools playing, while Monday sees three games, two all-DII matchups and a TCU-UMass nightcap.
The full schedule for Springfield can be found at this link. Curiously, TCU is the only school to play on all three days in Massachusetts.
After you get your head around that event setup, here are a few schedule news links to visit.