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Virginia Tech basketball, courtside with Mark Berman

Greenberg brothers talk schedules

Now that I'm back from vacation -- and from a trip to Tuscaloosa to get the lowdown on the Crimson Tide football program -- I thought I'd check in with Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg and his brother, Radford coach Brad Greenberg.

While Brad's schedule is finished, Seth is still putting the finishing touches on his schedule. There is one foe of note that he is still trying to get confirmed.

As far as the rest of the schedule, Tech will be visiting Atlantic Sun member (and once-and-future Big South member) Campbell on Nov. 23. Tech will be the first ACC varsity men's basketball team to ever visit that school.

This will be the second season for Campbell's 3,095-seat arena.

So why is Tech going to Buies Creek, NC?

"(Campbell coach) Robbie Laing is a really good guy," Seth Greenberg said. "They've got a new facility and he asked me to do him a favor."

The schedule also includes nonleague road games against Iowa (ACC-Big Ten Challenge) and Penn State, and games against Temple and Delaware at the Palestra on Thaksgiving weekend as part of a seven-team Philly tourney. The Philly tourney - the Philly Hoop Group Classic -- also has Tech hosting Brown in Blacksburg. That covers the 3 games Tech plays in that tourney.

Nonleague VT home games include Georgia, VMI, UNC Greensboro and Maryland-Baltimore County.

Don't forget, Tech teams have been told to stick to nonleague games east of the Mississippi this coming school year for budget reasons, and to try to go no farther than two states away for nonleague games. The ACC-Big Ten Challenge being an exception.

Meanwhile, Radford's schedule includes a game as part of ESPN's annual "BracketBusters" extravaganza.

That is a reversal from last season. Brad Greenberg wanted no part of BracketBusters last summer when the league office asked him if RU wanted to be considered by the Big South for one of the Big South's 2208-09 slots.

"I didn't want to have another possible road game thrown into the middle of the season," Brad told me in February about why he didn't want to be considered for the 2008-09 season's BracketBusters

So why was he willing to do BracketBusters this coming season?

Well, Radford won the Big South title in March. And the league office wanted its defending champ to be one of the Big South teams in BracketBusters.

"At our league meetings, before I had even gotten our schedule close to finalized for the coming year, they had said to us, 'Hold open a game. Since you won the league, you've got to be available for BracketBusters this year. We want to be able to give them the names of teams that we think are going to be strong in our league so that if any of those teams are having a good season, there's potential for one of those teams to be in a significant BracketBusters matchup that might warrant TV,' " Brad said Wednesday. "That's the benefit of being in it, if you actually get a TV game."

Brad did not know at the time if RU would be home or away for BracketBusters, but he agreed.

"This was the year to to do it without worrying about whether it was home or away because Navy, William and Mary and George Mason all had to return games to us this year," Brad said. "I knew I was going to have some home games."

Well, Radford has indeed been awarded a home game for BracketBusters -- but doesn't yet know who it will host or if the game will be on TV. Last season only 13 of the 51 BracketBusters games were televised; three Big South teams were among the 102 teams involved.

"We should have a good team, so this coming season, I think it's a nice to thing to have another possible really interesting home game in the middle of the year that might even be attractive for a TV game," Brad said.

I talked to VMI coach Duggar Baucom, and he again had no interest in being considered for BracketBusters.

Radford's schedule also includes home games against ODAC foes Roanoke College and Lynchburg, which will help balance out those three road games (and likely losses) against Duke, Louisville and Kansas. Radford is picking up $240,000 for the latter three games.

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Mark Berman keeps you up to date with Virginia Tech men's basketball, plus the ACC and the national scene as an AP Top 25 voter.

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