When UTRGV athletics director Chris King chose to hire Lew Hill as the school’s men’s basketball coach in March, he knew the move came with a bonus. Hill’s mentor, University of Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger, had spoken to King about the position and proposed that if UTRGV went with Hill, he would bring the Sooners to the Valley to help open the Vaqueros’ new home arena in 2017-18.

On Tuesday, Kruger officially held up his end of the bargain, as UTRGV announced that the Sooners will travel to Edinburg to face the Vaqueros in the team’s home opener and first game at Bert Ogden Arena on Nov. 18, 2017.

“You want the best to come down here, and you want the atmosphere to be wild and crazy,” Hill said. “Win or lose, we’re going to compete hard. We’re just going to show people that we can play and compete with the big guys.”

Oklahoma, where Hill had served as an assistant coach since 2011, was one of the NCAA’s best last season, advancing to the Final Four before losing to eventual national champion Villanova. Teams of that caliber have rarely ever come to the Valley, as the UTRGV program has hosted just 10 games against opponents from Power 5 conferences. The most recent game was in 2010, a 77-71 loss against Northwestern. The UTRGV program has hosted only three games against Big 12 opponents, most recently doing so in 1991.

Hill hopes the new arena can help him fulfill his ambition to play more home games against better competition. He’s aiming for 17 or 18 home games per year, after the program has played anywhere from nine to 15 during the past 20 seasons.

“If I have to do home-and-homes and two-for-ones to get big guys down here, then that’s what I’ll do. The bigger the schools, the greater the interest in the program,” Hill said. “Sometimes big schools don’t want to come play in a little small fieldhouse. They’ll come to play in an arena quicker than they will in a small fieldhouse, because a small fieldhouse is advantage you. They don’t want to take a chance. But in a bigger place, they want to get more fans involved.”

Bert Ogden Arena, announced in November 2013 and still under construction, is a 115,799-square foot, $50-million facility with an expected capacity of 8,500. Located in Edinburg off Interstate 69 Central, the arena will be the primary home for the NBA Development League’s Rio Grande Valley Vipers, although King had been in discussions about UTRGV playing in the facility dating all the way back to its original announcement.

“For our continued growth, moving the men’s games from the fieldhouse to an 8,500-seat arena is a very exciting proposition,” King said at the time of the arena’s announcement in November 2013. “It helps recruiting, it helps the coaching staff and it brings a different brand. There’s nothing like playing in a state-of-the-art arena with club suites and great courtside views. We’d have the ability to maybe bring in some marquee teams, marquee tournaments.

“Anytime you can upgrade, it’s fantastic.”

Kruger’s ties to the Valley date back to 1982, when he accepted the first head coaching job of his career at what was then Pan American University.

He entered a program that had won five games the year before his arrival and built it to a 20-win season during his final year, in 1985-86. He’s gone on to become the only head coach in history to win NCAA Tournament games at five different schools, advancing to the Final Four with Florida in 1994 and Oklahoma in 2016.

The 2017-18 matchup between UTRGV and Oklahoma will be Kruger’s second return to the Valley as a head coach, after Illinois played at the UTPA Fieldhouse on Nov. 28, 1998. UTPA also visited Kruger twice during his tenure as the head coach at UNLV.

“I always check out how they’re doing,” Kruger said at Hill’s introductory press conference in April. “From the time we left, I always had a special feeling about this place. My wife, Barb, and I loved living in the Valley. People are so good. We’ve only been back maybe three or four times during that span, but we always enjoy it and always look forward to it.”

 

Source : themonitor.com

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