New Mexico Taking Part In ESPN's 24-Hour College Basketball Marathon, Hosting Davidson

ESPN knows gimmicks and they are back again with their 24 hours of straight college basketball coverage. The New Mexico Lobos are taking part in the event and they will be facing the Davidson Wildcats at 2 a.m. ET and is at The Pit.

A midnight local time game at The PIt is interesting, but the crowd should be rocking at the late hour, and it surely helps that Davidson made the NCAA tournament last year. Last year, Davidson had a 25-8 record and lost to the Louisville Cardinals in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

With this game being at ESPN and at The Pit means that Mountain West basketball games will be picked up by the network. So hopefully, there will be more picked up once it gets close to basketball season.

Head coach Steve Alford talked about being on ESPN and taking part in this event:

"While we understand that a midnight tip-off will be a challenge for some, I believe that it is worth the tremendous exposure that our program will receive," said Vice President for Athletics Paul Krebs. "This is a chance to showcase not just The Pit, but the best fans in America, and to get ESPN here for a regular season game to feature that was too good an opportunity to let pass."

Here is the complete marathon schedule (all times Eastern):

Midnight: West Virginia at Gonzaga
2 a.m.: Davidson at New Mexico
4 a.m.: Houston Baptist at Hawaii
6 a.m.: Stony Brook at Rider
8 a.m.: Northern Illinois at Valparaiso
10 a.m.: Harvard at Massachusetts
12 p.m.: Temple at Kent State
2 p.m.: Detroit at St. John's
4 p.m.: Butler at Xavier
7 p.m.: Michigan State vs. Kansas (Champions Classic, Georgia Dome -- Atlanta)
30 minutes following MSU/KU: Duke vs. Kentucky (Champions Classic)

This list of games is very good with the exception of Houston Baptist at Hawaii and Stony Brook at Rider. Everything else has some good story lines.

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