GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- The Tusculum University men's basketball team gets the 2018-19 season underway this Friday night as the Pioneers take on the Arkansas Razorbacks in an exhibition game at Bud Walton Arena. Tip-off time from Fayetteville, Arkansas is 8 p.m. (ET).
Friday will also be the Tusculum debut for head coach J.T. Burton who took over the program in March, becoming the 28th men's basketball coach in school history and the seventh head coach during the NCAA Division II era of the program.
Friday begins a grueling six-day stretch where the Black & Orange will face the strongest exhibition slate in program history. Tusculum will take on three Division I opponents, all of which advanced to last year's NCAA Tournament and combined for an 80-26 overall record.
Following Friday's game at Arkansas, Tusculum will return closer to home and make the short trip to Knoxville to face defending SEC co-champion Tennessee on Halloween night at Thompson-Boling Arena. After facing the sixth-ranked Volunteers, Tusculum will travel the following day to take on the Cincinnati Bearcats, the defending American Athletic Conference champions, at the newly renovated Fifth Third Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Pioneers will travel an estimated 2,290 miles round-trip while facing three of the most established programs in college basketball which has combined for three NCAA national championships, 12 trips to the NCAA Final Four and 85 combined NCAA postseason appearances between them.
Coach Burton's inaugural TU squad includes five lettermen and two starters from last year's 6-21 team that finished 10th in the South Atlantic Conference. Back from a year ago is TU's top scorer in senior guard Donovan Donaldson. The Nashville, Tennessee product averaged 14.1 points per game (17th in SAC) while dishing out a team-best 4.6 assists per contest (3rd in SAC).
Since the NCAA has allowed Division II teams to face D-I programs in exhibition contests, the Pioneers have not been shy of facing some of the best teams in the land. Tusculum has played Tennessee in exhibition contests on a couple of occasions, while also taking on the likes of Xavier, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, ETSU and Vanderbilt to name a few. The Pioneers came close to pulling off a monumental upset in 2007 when Tusculum took Vanderbilt to the final horn, losing 80-79 in Nashville.
Tusculum will open its regular-season on Nov. 9-10 when the Pioneers travel to Aiken, South Carolina for the SAC / Peach Belt Challenge. TU will open against host USC Aiken on the Nov. 9 and take on defending PBC co-champion Clayton State on Nov. 10.
