RUSTON, La. (June 24) -- Twelve home games, an early season tournament at Arkansas and road games against Mississippi State and Minnesota highlight the 2000-01 Louisiana Tech Bulldog schedule.
"It's going to be a challenging schedule," said Louisiana Tech head coach Keith Richard. "There are several schools on this schedule that we haven't played in a long time including three new teams in the conference plus schools like Southern Mississippi, Bradley, Mississippi State and Minnesota in the non-conference schedule. These are all new teams for us so its going to be challenging in that aspect."
The Bulldogs open the regular season on Nov. 17 at the John Thompson Classic hosted by the University of Arkansas. Joining Tech at the tournament are Tennessee State and the Bulldogs' first round opponent Southern Mississippi.
"We didn't hesitate when we were contacted about playing in the tournament," Richard said. "It's a tournament to honor one of the great all-time collegiate coaches and I'm glad Louisiana Tech will be a part of it."
Since the Bulldogs have gone 19-1 the past two seasons at home, it's no wonder that Coach Richard is looking forward to this season's home slate.
"We're getting closer to having a balanced schedule," Richard said. "My first season we had nine home games, last year we had 11 and next year we will have 12 home games. To continue moving forward with our program, we need more home games and this schedule is a step in the right direction."
The Bulldogs open their home schedule on Nov. 21 against Ouachita Baptist. The schedule features home matchups with conference foes UL-Lafayette on Feb. 8 and Florida International on Feb. 25 and in- state rival Centenary on Dec. 16.
Trips to Mississippi State, Minnesota and Centenary highlight Tech's non-conference road schedule as the Bulldogs play in Starkville, Miss. on Dec. 5, battle the Golden Gophers on Dec. 12 and take on Centenary in the Gold Dome on Jan. 20.
"We have been very competitive in these types of games on the road," Richard said. "Over the past few years, we have beaten Baylor, TCU and St. Louis on the road and we think we can be very competitive in these matchups."
The conference schedule features home and away battles against Arkansas-Little Rock, Arkansas State, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee and Florida International while facing the other conference schools only once. The Bulldogs will also play three conference newcomers at home including North Texas on Jan. 11, Middle Tennessee on Jan. 25 and New Mexico State on Feb. 17.
Tech returns two starters off of last year's 21-8 team including Gerrod Henderson, the Sun Belt Conference's Player of the Year and Antonio Meeking, the SBC's Freshman of the Year.
