Dec. 24, 2002
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - The Santa Clara University men's basketball team hopes to extend its three-game win streak Friday when it hosts Mississippi Valley State in the first round of the 36th annual Cable Car Classic at the Leavey Center.
The Broncos play the first game of the tournament at 6 p.m., while the second game featuring Princeton against Texas A&M will tipoff at approximately 8:30 p.m. Saturday's consolation game is scheduled for 6 p.m. with the championship following 30 minutes afterward. All four games of the Cable Car Classic will be televised by HDNet, a national high definition network that distributes its HDTV programming on DIRECTV's channel 199.
Tickets to the Cable Car Classic are available by calling 408/554-4660 during business hours or by purchasing online by clicking here.
Santa Clara enters Friday's game with a 6-3 overall record after registering an 81-56 victory at Loyola College (Md.) Sunday. Each of the 11 Broncos who played in the game scored, led by freshman Brandon Rohe's 17 points and 5-for-6 shooting from behind the three-point arc.
Junior guard Kyle Bailey, who is listed as questionable for the Cable Car Classic, leads Santa Clara in scoring with a 13.4 points per game average. Senior forward Cord Anderson is the Broncos' rebounding leader, pulling down an average of 7.1 boards per game. In addition to Bailey, SCU is expected to be without the services of sophomore point guard Bakari Altheimer. The Oakland, Calif. native suffered a fractured foot in the preseason and could return to the lineup in early January.
Mississippi Valley State is 1-6 on the season and, most recently, dropped a 96-63 decision at Oral Roberts. The alma mater of Oakland Raiders' wide receiver Jerry Rice, the Delta Devils are led by forward Attarius Norman's 14.6 points and 6.4 rebounds per game. D'Jamel Jackson is averaging 14.4 points per game for MVSU, who is making its first appearance ever in the Cable Car Classic.
Texas A&M enters the Cable Car Classic with a 6-2 mark with wins over LSU and Tennessee from the Southeastern Conference and a narrow 78-72 loss at Miami (Fla.) from the Big East Conference. In their last outing, the Aggies knocked-off the University of Louisiana-Monroe by a score of 107-66 in College Station, Texas.
Freshman Antoine Wright leads Texas A&M in scoring and rebounding, averaging 18.1 points and 8.7 boards per game. He is the Big 12 Conference's leading three-point shooter, connecting on 3.1 treys per game, and leads the league in defensive rebounds.
Princeton is 3-5 on the season after nearly knocking-off 10th-ranked Texas last weekend. The Tigers missed a last-second three-point attempt and fell 57-54 in Austin. Spencer Gloger leads Princeton in scoring, averaging 16.1 point per game. Judson Wallace is the team's rebounding leader, bringing down an average of 6.9 boards per game.
Princeton and Texas A&M both have previous appearances in the Cable Car Classic. The Tigers defeated UC-Santa Barbara by a score on 67-51 before falling to host Santa Clara 59-53 in the championship game of the 1990 event. In 1999, Texas A&M dropped a 60-48 first round decision to host Santa Clara then rebounded with a 70-69 win over LaSalle in the consolation game.
The Cable Car Classic was founded in 1967 by Art Santodomingo, the former public relations director for the San Francisco Giants baseball club, and Harry Jupiter, a sportswriter for the San Francisco Examiner. Santa Clara won the first event with a 75-68 victory over Western Kentucky and owns a 40-30 record in the tournament with 12 championships.
Last season, the Cable Car Classic marked the turnaround point for the 2-8 Broncos. Santa Clara used a last-second shot by Bailey to defeat UMBC 59-58 in the first round, then knocked-off NCAA Tournament-bound UC-Santa Barbara 61-59 in the championship game. Starting with those two wins, the Broncos posted a 12-6 mark to end the season.