July 2, 2009

QUEENS, N.Y. - St. John's and the BIG EAST Conference announced the 2009-10 league matchups for the Red Storm men's basketball team on Thursday. St. John's will take part in home-and-home series with Louisville, Pittsburgh and DePaul during the upcoming season, and will meet the remaining BIG EAST league opponents once either at home or on the road.

In 2009-10, the BIG EAST will once again play an 18-game conference schedule, in which teams face 12 opponents once and three teams twice. It will mark the third year of the 18-game schedule, which began for the 2007-08 season. All 144 regular-season conference games will once again be televised, either by CBS Sports, the ESPN family of networks or ESPN Regional Television.

In addition to the Cardinals, Panthers and Blue Demons, St. John's plays a host of marquee matchups against conference opponents. Villanova, West Virginia, Seton Hall, Cincinnati, Providence and Marquette all travel to New York City for matchups on one of St. John's home courts, either at the newly-renovated Carnesecca Arena - which will boast several new amenities for the 2009-10 season, including a new video scoreboard - or on the grand stage at Madison Square Garden, "The World's Most Famous Arena."

The Red Storm will hit the road to face Connecticut, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Rutgers, USF and Syracuse in addition to Louisville, Pittsburgh and DePaul.

"We are excited about another great BIG EAST schedule. We have a terrific home slate with teams like Louisville, Pitt, Marquette, Villanova and West Virginia coming in. The road schedule is always so challenging in the BIG EAST, and this year will be no different with trips to UConn, Georgetown, Notre Dame and Syracuse," said St. John's head coach Norm Roberts. "We're all really excited about the season. Our guys are working tremendously hard this summer, and with many veterans returning to our team who have been through the BIG EAST schedule before, we are really looking forward to making some big strides in the conference this year. "

The complete St. John's men's basketball schedule, with non-conference opponents, dates, times and television information, will be released with the rest of the BIG EAST conference basketball schedules at a later date this fall. The complete non-conference schedule, which will include a Dec. 9 matchup at The Garden against Georgia as part of the SEC/BIG EAST Invitational, will be released next week.

To order season tickets for St. John's men's basketball home games, call the Red Storm Ticket Office at 1-888-GO-STORM. Available mini-plans will go on sale next week and