4-Pack Offer
4 Tickets
4 Hot Dogs
4 Sodas
Starting at $99
The 16th annual John R. Wooden Classic will boast one of its top fields in recent memory, with four perennial top 25 teams, each of which has captured a conference title the last two seasons.
UCLA will face Mississippi State in Game 2 of the college basketball doubleheader, after Georgetown takes on the University of Washington in Game 1.
It will mark UCLA’s seventh consecutive appearance in the Wooden Classic (13th overall), with a record of 9-3 in prior contests. In last year’s event, the Bruins defeated DePaul, 72-54. The last and only time UCLA and Mississippi State faced each other was in 1995 when UCLA beat MSU 86-67 in an NCAA Sweet 16 game in Oakland, Calif., on the Bruins’ way to that season’s National Championship.
UCLA finished the 2008-09 season with an overall record of 26-9 and national ranking of 18th in both polls. In their fifth straight appearance in the NCAA tournament the Bruins fell to Villanova in the second round, eliminating their chance of a fourth straight Final Four appearance. The team returns key contributors from last season including three seniors James Keefe, Michael Roll and Nikola Dragovic and also welcomes in its second-consecutive top five recruiting class.
It is the second time Mississippi State has participated in the John R. Wooden Classic, following its 2004 appearance in which the Bulldogs fell just short to the Arizona Wildcats, 68-64. Under the direction of 12th-year coach Rick Stansbury, MSU returns all five starters from a team that posted a 23-13 ledger after winning the SEC Tournament and losing to Washington in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs, who have advanced to the Big Dance in six of the last eight years, were led in scoring (12.9 ppg) and rebounding (8.8 rpg) by All-SEC forward Jarvis Varnado, who also led the nation with a league-record 170 blocked shots. He enters the 2009-10 campaign 141 blocks shy of tying the NCAA record.
In addition, this annual event marks the return home for highly touted signee Renardo Sidney, a Mississippi native who prepped in the Los Angeles area the past three years.
Georgetown University Men’s Basketball will visit the West Coast for the first time in eight years, since Dec. 29., 2001, when the club fell to UCLA, 98-91.
The first-ever meeting between Georgetown and Washington’s men’s basketball programs, the game will also mark the Hoyas first appearance in the Wooden Classic. Under the direction of Head Coach John Thompson III, last year the Hoyas advanced to the postseason for the fifth-straight season, beat two teams that advanced to the Final Four and two teams that reached the Sweet 16 while playing a schedule that ranked among the toughest in the country.
Georgetown returns three starters from last year’s team, led by junior guards Austin Freeman and Chris Wright, as well as 2008-09 BIG EAST Rookie of the Year, center Greg Monroe. The appearance in the Wooden Classic will also be a homecoming for Georgetown freshman forward Hollis Thompson, who prepped at De La Salle (Concord, CA).
This will be Washington’s second appearance in the Wooden Classic. In 2005, the Huskies defeated New Mexico 81-71 behind a solid 22-point effort by Jamaal Williams against his former team. All-America Brandon Roy added 18 points for Coach Lorenzo Romar’s team that eventually advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16. Last season, Washington won its first-ever Pac-10 title and the first league title of any sort since 1953 and fell just two points shy of its third Sweet 16 appearance in six seasons. The Huskies finished last season with a 26-9 overall record and a 14-4 mark in taking the Pac-10 title.
The team returns three starters this season, including senior forward Quincy Pondexter – who earned his first international experience last summer as a member of the USA squad that earned a bronze medal at the World University Games. Romar also welcomes the return of one of the nation’s best backcourts, led by sophomore Isaiah Thomas – last year’s leading scorer.
Tip off times for both contests will be announced in conjunction with the event’s television schedule in the coming weeks.
Established in 1994, the Wooden Classic is an annual tribute to the legendary former coach and the excellence he personifies. The event, co-produced by Pantheon International, LLC and Anaheim Arena Management, LLC, has a tradition of bringing the nation’s finest college programs to Southern California.