City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Saint Joseph's will be one of eight teams participating in the 2015 Hall of Fame Tip-Off Classic at Mohegan Sun Casino (Unionville, Conn., Nov. 21-22), the school announced on Wednesday.

The Hawks join Florida, Purdue and Old Dominion as hosts in the early rounds of the event, where they'll be joined by Buffalo, Niagara, Vermont and North Carolina A&T. 

SJU gets its tournament underway with home contests against Buffalo and Niagara on November 15 and 18, respectively.

The hosts are guaranteed spots in the event's semifinals on November 21, with Saint Joseph's facing Florida and Old Dominion taking on Purdue; winners and losers will face the following day in the consolation and championship.

It will be interesting to see who's coaching Florida this fall--Billy Donovan, who's lead the Gators to 14 NCAA Tournaments and two national championships in his 20 seasons at the school, is reportedly heavily interested in an NBA job.

All game times and television details will be announced at a later date.

A pre-sale of tickets to all participating schools will start on May 6 at 10:00 a.m. EST via all Ticketmaster outlets and the Mohegan Sun Arena box office. General public tickets will go on sale Friday, September 11. 

Last year, the 20th under head coach Phil Martelli, a young Hawks squad went 13-18 overall, with a 7-11 record in Atlantic 10 Conference play. They return four starters, including A-10 Player of the Year candidate DeAndre Bembry, who averaged 17.9 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 3.6 apg and 1.9 spg to lead SJU in all four categories as a sophomore.