While tickets are already on sale for the Michigan State and Rice games in Detroit and Houston, fans have still been in the dark about when they can secure their seats for the Legends Classic and UCLA game. But thanks to LRT, Longhorn fans will wait no longer. That’s right, folks. We’ve got your info……sort of.

Tickets for the two Legends Classic games in Newark will go on sale this Thursday, October 11th. The games will be played at the brand new Prudential Center, which means it’s been difficult to find anything resembling a reliable seating diagram. A call to the box office has confirmed that there will be three price levels per ticket, allowing fans to buy them at 53, 23, and 12 dollars. No confirmation as to whether or not there’s a service charge for that new-arena smell.

The UCLA game being played in December at Pauley Pavilion is a little more dicey. Bruins season tickets have been on sale for months, and recently “holiday packs” were put on sale to get fans into the upper-deck seats for games later in December. Now we learn that all non-conference single game tickets will go on sale October 17th — except for the Texas game.

Box office reps couldn’t give me a sale date for the December 2nd game (or the Pac-10 Conference games for the Bruins), but they were fairly certain that the only seats available would be upstairs. So, if you’re planning on sitting in the lower levels for the UCLA game, you may want to start scouring the web. And if you’d like to buy through LRT-sponsor Ticket City, leave us a comment or shoot an email if you would like to help us get a cut. I have no shame in my internet whoring.

More info to come later this month on those UCLA tickets through the school, but in the meantime snap up your seats for Rice, Michigan State, and the Legends Classic. And if you want to hook up with the LRT crew anywhere on the road this season, just let us know.

While the eyes of Texas are locked on Dallas this weekend, the NBA is firing up its pre-season slate with a trio of games in Europe.

T.J. Ford and the Toronto Raptors open play against the new-look Boston Celtics in Rome on Saturday night. Tip-off is 1:30 PM Central, and will offer fans their first glimpse of the C’s with big man Kevin Garnett. Fans in the States who want to catch a little roundball instead of pigskin can tune in on NBA TV.

The Raps follow their NBA pre-season opener with an international clash against Lottomatica Roma on Sunday. The host Italian team includes former Villanova guard Allan Ray, who spent some time with the Austin Toros of the NBDL. While this match-up won’t be televised in the US, fans can check stats on NBA.com when the contest tips at 11:30 AM Central.

It’s long been a complaint that the student sections in the Frank Erwin Center leave a lot to be desired. And to keep from pointing fingers at any one particular group, I’ll go ahead and expand that complaint to the entire arena. The simple fact of the matter is that the FEC is rarely home to an intimidating atmosphere, and is nowhere near the level of product that Rick Barnes puts out on the floor every year. And while these are issues I plan on addressing here at LRT as we close in on opening night, today it seems like there may be a little hope that things are going to be different this year.

The marketing department in Belmont has scheduled a night of giveaways, promotions, and general pandemonium to be held in Gregory Gym on Friday, October 26th. While I couldn’t get much in the way of exact details from the gentleman I spoke to in the marketing office, he repeatedly mentioned that they were looking to get the word out to students about the basketball program.

Of course, most students still have no idea what is going on with the ticket system or the Stampede pass, and there is the looming question of whether or not anything will be done to remedy the giant clusterfuck that occurred at the final home game of the season against A&M. And sure, there’s still more to be done to increase attendance in the rest of the arena. But I’m glad to see some acknowledgment that there’s an elite basketball team on this campus and a slight effort to get our gigantic student body to fill up its small ticket allotment.

I’ll post more details as they are released, but for now let’s all cross our fingers that this is the first in a series of initiatives to increase attendance.