By MATT PIKE
This December, St. Joseph’s Civic Arena will again play host to Division I women’s college basketball
“We’re really fortunate and honored that we’re able to host Division I women’s college basketball at a time where the product is arguably as popular as it’s ever been,” St. Joseph Sports Commision Director Brett Esely tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Esely says the third annual Bill Snyder Classic will play host to the Kansas State women again, this year taking on Ole Miss of the SEC.
Esely says the matchup is one that should draw a lot of interest
“Just a really, really intriguing matchup anywhere, let alone here in St. Joseph, when you’ve got one of the Big 12’s best teams taking on one of the SEC’s best teams,” Esely says.
Eseley says this year’s matchup will take place on Sunday, rather than Saturday, and tipoff at 2pm which is significant because this matchup could attract national attention
“ESPN obviously has a lot of family of networks, and whereas those time windows may not be as readily available on Saturday, they could be on Sunday, and so we hope that that’s the case this time around,” Esely explains. “Because the matchup sells itself, there’s very little to sell with the matchup, any time you’ve got two teams that are likely going to be nationally ranked and two teams just with the recent history that they’ve had and what they did a season ago, there’s going to be interest around this game.”
Esely does point out games are always streamed online typically, but that TV window for women’s basketball is typically on Sunday’s, which made moving a matchup like this intriguing.
Both teams made the sweet 16 in last season’s NCAA tournament, and finished the season ranked in the top 25, with Kansas State at #13 and Ole Miss at #17.
Esely is already expecting a large crowd on hand at the arena on December 7th
“I’ll be honest, I’d be disappointed if we didn’t sell this game out,” Esely candidly says. “I think the uniqueness of the event, the opponents that are playing, I would say there’s a very good chance going into that game that these two teams are going to be nationally ranked, which is another huge selling point, I’d be really disappointed if this game didn’t sell out, I think our tickets will be very affordably priced depending on where you want to sit in the arena.”
Tickets will go on sale this month, with an early presale for people who have purchased tickets to the two previous Bill Snyder classics.
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt.