Jul. 21– Concordia University head women's basketball coach Paul Fessler has announced the 2008-09 schedule for the back-to-back Northern Sun regular season and tournament champions. The Golden Bears will play a 30 game regular season schedule with their inclusion in the 2008 Disney's Division II West Coast Tip-Off Classic to open their regular season slate Nov. 7-9 in Anaheim, Calif.
"We're very excited about the 2008-09 season," said Fessler. "Getting into the Disney Tip-Off is great for our program. We also host two classics at Gangelhoff and we are going out to Kearney, so we'll be competing in four classics this year which should provide top notch competition."
Aside from the Disney Tip-Off, the Golden Bears will be hosting the Wildwood Lodge Tip-Off Classic on Nov. 21-22, playing against UW-La Crosse before facing region-rival Metro State from the Rocky Mountain (RMAC).
The following weekend, Nov. 28-29, they travel to Kearney, Neb. to face another tough regional foe, Nebraska-Kearney before taking on Rockhurst University from Kansas City, Mo.
On Dec. 20-21, after league play begins, Concordia takes a break from Northern Sun action to host the Golden Bear Holiday Classic, taking on Lynn University and Valley City State.
In all, Concordia has nine non-conference games in the four classics. They also have two NCAA Division I teams on the schedule, starting with an exhibition against the University of Minnesota on Nov. 1. In Dec., Concordia travels to Vermillion, S.D. to face last year's Division II National Runner-Up, The University of South Dakota in a regular season non-conference tilt.
Fessler continued, "We have a tough schedule this year, but it's exciting to face UNK and USD, our two opponents from the 06-07 regional, and we get two games against (Minnesota State) Mankato, who we played at last year's regional."
Minnesota State, a non-conference opponent on last year's regular season schedule, along with Minnesota Duluth and St. Cloud State, will join the NSIC along with Augustana to make up a 14 team league. Augustana, unlike MSU, UMD and SCSU, was not on CU's schedule last season.
"Winning league titles just got that much tougher for the future," Fessler said of the new-look NSIC. "Adding those four teams, some of our best non-conference action in the past, now that they are league games puts that much more excitement into facing them possibly twice a year."
The Golden Bears have captured three NSIC regular season and tournament championships and have made the NCAA Tournament all six years that they have been eligible, starting in 2002-03. They have the longest active streak of NCAA Tournament appearances in the region and are the only team in Northern Sun history to repeat as regular season and tournament champions.
Concordia finished 28-3 overall in 2007-08, ranked #14 in the final national poll.
