Oct. 19, 2008

PHOTO GALLERY

Los Angeles, CA -- In terms of the 2008-09 season, the Eighth Annual LMU Men's Basketball Tipoff event will go down as just a glorified practice. But it was far more as the 2008 version of the tipoff event featured a sneak peak into the new era of LMU basketball and gave local middle school students an experience they will never forget.

This year's tipoff event featured the annual luncheon where LMU radio play-by-play announcer Jeff Lampe led an event where about 180 fans and LMU families were introduced to a team that included eight brand new faces and a whole new coaching staff. Head Coach Bill Bayno and assistant coach Myke Scholl each gave inspiring words as this year's event was the first for the 2008-09 team.

The tipoff event also featured a Crimson-Navy Scrimmage. Actually the Crimson team wore home whites in a scrimmage that featured two games of 10 minutes. The game came after an hour practice, just the third of the young season. The white team won both games, 12-10 in the first match-up and 30-28 in a two overtime set in the second game. The overtimes where two minutes for the first and a minute for the second.

However, the final score of the scrimmages won't be remembered. What will be is the day of activities with LMU Cares, the LMU Men's Basketball Community Outreach Program. About 13 students from the Lennox Middle School journalism club were invited to attend the scrimmage. Prior to the practice and scrimmage, the students had the opportunity to interview players from the team. Stories from those interviews will be posted on LMULions.com in coming weeks.

Students were also given the opportunity to participate in the LMU Cares partner program, Project Knapsack. Project Knapsack is an international non-profit organization connecting kids globally through its international pen pal exchange. In 2008, over 425 public and private school students in the Untied States exchanged letters with students in Zambia, Afrida.

LMU men's basketball will be part of the program's expansion. LMU's participation is designed to link elementary school students in Inglewood and Lennox with primary school students in Lusaka, Zambia and Soweto, South Africa to exchange ideas and life experiences. Lennox Middle School is the first group to be part of the partnership.

The program will provide all the students with a literacy and composition curriculum to assist them with their writing skills. LMU men's basketball players will then assist the students in Inglewood and Lennox in writing letters to their pen pals in Zambia and South Africa.

For their participation in the program, each student participating in the letter writing program, both in the United States and in Africa, will be provided with backpacks that contain school supplies, educational materials and LMU t-shirts.

- GO LIONS -