Santa Clara men's basketball is proud to announce the field for the 47th Annual Cable Car Classic and for the first time in school history - it will be played over Thanksgiving weekend. This year's Cable Car Classic will be held Fri., Nov. 29 and Sat., Nov. 30.
Santa Clara will face off vs. North Dakota State on Nov. 29 at 8 pm. Prior to their game, Rice will face Rider at 6 pm. The consolation game will be played at 6 pm on Nov. 30 and the championship will be played at 8 pm on Nov. 30. All three teams are playing in the Cable Car Classic for the first time.
"To continually compete for a championship in season each year is important and once again this year we will have a challenging field for the Cable Car Classic," said Bronco head coach Kerry Keating. "We hope that Thanksgiving weekend will help all those Bronco fans, alumni and Bay Area basketball fans in town for the holidays to attend this year's tournament."
Santa Clara welcomes five freshmen this season, a graduate-transfer and seven letterwinners from last year's CBI Championship team that had one of the biggest win-total turnarounds in NCAA history. Click here for the 2013-14 roster. http://www.santaclarabroncos.com/sports/m-baskbl/2013-14/roster
North Dakota State returns all five starters from a team that went 24-10 and advanced to the CBI for the second straight year. Led by Saul Phillips, the Bison made it to the 2013 Summit League title game for the first time since winning the 2009 league championship.
Rider, also the Broncos and members of the MAAC, returns from a 19-15 season where it advanced to the second round of the CIT in 2013. They also played in the CIT in 2011.
Rice will be playing its 100th season of college basketball this season and its sixth season under head coach Ben Braun. The Owls, who play in Conference USA, return eight players from last season's squad and add seven newcomers to the mix for 2013-14. The entire team went on a Canadian exhibition trip in early August and came away with a successful results.
Santa Clara has won the Cable Car Classic 16 times in the past 46 years – including last year's 69-45 over the 2011 Cable Car Champion, Wagner. Check out highlights from the game!
In 1967 the Cable Car Classic was founded by Art Santo Domingo, a former public relations director of the San Francisco Giants, and his long-time friend, the late Harry Jupiter, a sports writer for the San Francisco Examiner, who passed away four years ago.
In 31 of the Classic's 46 years, the Classic has featured a team that would receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament just months later. Click here and go to pages 42-44 for more Cable Car Classic history.
For 10 years it has featured multiple teams who would later advance. The 1995 Cable Car Classic proved to be one of the strongest fields with all four teams advancing to the 1996 NCAA Tournament in March. Penn State won the Cable Car Classic with Georgia Tech, Santa Clara and Bradley also making the post-season. Georgia Tech won the ACC that year as well.
Those participating in past Cable Car Classics read like a who's who in college basketball history. From the Santa Clara teams of the 1960's and '70's that featured the talents of Bud Ogden, Dennis Awtrey and Kurt Rambis and the USF squads, led by Kevin Restani, Winford Boynes and Bill Cartwright to traditional basketball powers such as Dean Smith's North Carolina Tar Heels featuring Michael Jordan and James Worthy and the Ralph Sampson-led Virginia Cavaliers, to the '90s with Stephen Marbury of Georgia Tech to this century's teams, including one of the Air Force Academy's best-ever teams in 2006.