Contrary to earlier reports, it doesn’t look like the Niners will be playing in The Bahamas this season. Charlotte was in line to play in the inaugural “Battle 4 Atlantis”, but with the demise of ESPN’s Cancun Governor’s Cup tournament, the teams registered for that tournament were handed over to Atlantis, including the Atlantic 10′s, University of Massachusetts. Since the same conference can not be represented in the same exempt event, Charlotte was left out. Charlotte could still attempt to organize its own exempt event with the help of NCAA loopholes; an exempt event allows a team to have two to three more games on their schedule.

Two years ago, Florida International threatened to pull out of the 2009 Coaches vs. Cancer 2k Sports Classic over a scheduling dispute, and Rhode Island was penciled in to replace them before Florida International agreed to the schedule. Rhode Island was then automatically slotted into the event for 2010 edition of the event. This precedent means we should keep an eye on the possibility of the Niners involvement in the 2012 edition of the “Battle 4 Atlantis.”

Today, David Scott of the Charlotte Observer did some digging which produced these nuggets.

• The 49ers’ return game from last season against Oregon State at Halton has been put off for a year, which puts a dent in the non-league home schedule.
• Charlotte has picked up home games against Coppin State (Dec. 19) and East Tennessee (Nov. 22), and will likely play at Lamar (although that’s not been finalized).
• The 49ers will open the season at home on Nov. 11 (a Friday), but the opponent has not been finalized (hearing that it will probably be an upper-tier Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference team).
• Charlotte plays Davidson at Halton on Dec. 12 and also travels to Radford and East Carolina on Dec. 3. A return game from last season at Wright State has not been set yet, and might not happen.
• The 49ers are talking to two other ACC schools, but nothing’s been firmed up yet. Charlotte had an offer from another ACC school on Dec. 3 (it would have been on the road), but could not get the East Carolina game moved.
• As of now, Charlotte is not in a holiday tournament, but there’s a chance at getting in a two-day, four-team event Thanksgiving weekend.

And now some Green Tinted insight on this and the other information we have. A game at Lamar, of the Southland Conference, probably wouldn’t happen without one or two return games in Charlotte. Also, Lamar’s location, East Texas (near the Louisiana border), places it perfectly to be a part of the same road trip as the Memphis game, much like last season’s “Georgia Invitational”, which featured games at the Peach State school’s Mercer and Georgia Tech. If this is the case, the game would take place between December 27th-29th.

The MEAC school set to open the season is described as “upper-tier” within the conference, which would point towards the opponent either being Morgan State or Hampton, who have consistently been in the MEAC Top-5 while getting multiple NCAA bids over the last six seasons. Hampton was seed 16th in 2011 while Morgan State represented the MEAC in 2009 and 2010.

Coppin State at Charlotte: December 19th, 2011

The East Carolina game is where it belongs, on the weekend, Green Tinted Glasses will be well represented in Greenville.

First caught on their message board and then confirmed through sources, Charlotte will be hosting the East Tennessee State Buccaneers in a non-conference match-up on a yet to be disclosed/determined date. ***Update*** Charlotte will NOT be going on the road to East Tennessee State in 2012-13 after hosting the Buccaneers this season. The Buccaneers tallied a 24-12 record while reaching the CIT Semifinals in 2011 following two consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament as the Atlantic Sun Champion. The Buccaneers have averaged 22 wins over the last five seasons and never less than 19, while making four postseason tournaments (2 NCAA, 1 NIT, 1 CIT).

Today Coach Major visited with WFNZ and decided to drop some tidbits about our upcoming schedule. The newly announced games are a home game with the Miami Hurricanes of the ACC, a road game against the Memphis Tigers of Conference USA and a continuation of our series with East Carolina on the road.

Miami will come to Halton Arena to play on December 22nd (date per Rivals). Miami was previously rumored to be in cahoots with Charlotte in organizing a Multi-Team Event. In late may Charlotte was ”looking to host a MTE in Dec 19,20,21,22 in 4,5,6,team scenarios”, it remains to be known whether or not this is the beginning of a series or part of such an event. Miami has made a coaching change this season as Frank Haith took the Missouri job. Miami tapped Jim Larranaga from George Mason (… remember them?) to be their next head coach. The Niners last played Miami in December 0f 2002 in Halton Arena, a game resulting in a 69-24 Charlotte victory. Charlotte is 4-2 all-time versus Miami.

Charlotte will be traveling to Memphis to play the Tigers on New Years Eve, which this year is a Saturday night, so we expect there to be plenty of Green Tinted weekend getaways. Memphis is ranked 9th in JeffGoodman’s off-season rankingsIt is yet to be known if there will be a return game to Charlotte, this could possibly be a game worthy of playing on the Uptown stage of Time Warner Cable Arena (just a thought). It should be noted that ESPN has a love affair with Memphis, and this would be a good chance to play on TV. Charlotte’s last game against Memphis was 83-69 in the 2005 Conference USA Tournament and the Niners are 6-7 all-time versus Memphis.

We don’t have a date for our match-up with East Carolina, but it was conveyed by Coach Major that this will be an ongoing series for the next 2-4 seasons. Niner Nation will certainly be jonesing to avenge the 62-61 loss from the previous season.

The Niners also will continue series with Davidson (12/10, H), Oregon State (TBA, H), Radford (TBA, A) and Wright State (TBA, A) from last season. With both Miami and Oregon visiting Halton Arena, it is the first time we’ve had two home games against BCS schools since 2007-08 and the first time at Halton Arena since 2005-06.

Charlotte is actively seeking to host an MTE (Multi-Team Exempt) Event this December according to a post by Charlotte’s Director of Basketball Operations, Rob Perron, on the Basketball Traveler’s Scheduling Board.

For all teams not in MTE and looking for similar competition! Guarantee offered to all teams or possible return games.Charlotte is looking to host a MTE in Dec 19,20,21,22 in 4,5,6,team scenarios. Each team would get a minimum of three games with the possibility of fourth game if desired. That game could be played within the standard two week period. Fourth game would include teams putting up or receiving additional guarantee dollars. Several teams interested already without promoting.

Miami(Fla.) is a team with interest in an event with Charlotte, although no others are known at this juncture, but GTG will be following this story closely.

Multiple sources (including a player’s twitter account) have confirmed that the Niners will be playing in the Bahamas around Christmas during the 2011-12 season.

This is not the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in Nassau taking place over Thanksgiving, featuring Connecticut and Florida State. That field was announced last week, and includes fellow Atlantic 10 member, Massachusetts.

This could be an unheard of exempt tournament, or an event similar to what took place at Atlantis last winter, when in a double header Georgia Tech faced Richmond, and Mississippi State faced Virginia Tech. In 2010, the event took place on Saturday December 18th, if the pattern holds, a 2011 version would be on December 17th, one year after the Tennessee game. It has been confirmed that Louisville will have a part in this event, along with two teams yet to be determined/disclosed.

GTG has unraveled a decent amout of information, unfortunately someone had some fun on Twitter this morning, and out April 1st credibility probably took a hit.

First, some Football news

GTG has heard two different rumors (one piece now confirmed) about Brad Lambert’s staff, possibly conflicting, but we are looking at them as two separate pieces of information:

• The first information we have is that on Monday, a coach will be joining the Niners from an undisclosed SoCon program and will use the weekend to meet with his current players.  It will leave us with one more coach to add this year.
• The next information is that Wake Forests Assistant Director of Football Operations, and nephew of Head Coach Brad Lambert, Trevor Lambert, is confirmed to be taking on the roll of Director of Football Operations for the Charlotte 49ers, beginning Monday.

Once again, these are two seperate pieces of information.

On the Basketball front, recruitng news and some new scheduling speculation.

• A new name has popped up on the Men’s Basketball radar, Ari Stewart.  Stewart is transferring out of Wake Forest and will have 2 years of eligibility.  No schools have been officially listed for Stewart, nor a timeline to select a program.
• The new tournament in Nassau had been on the radar for Charlotte fans, but it has been learned that UMass will be in the Battle 4 Atlantis, and as a fellow Atlantic 10 school, Charlotte will not be participating in this event. UMass did have to abandon plans for ESPN’s Cancun Governor’s Cup, leaving an opening that an Atlantic 10 school, much like Charlotte, would be eligible to fill. This tournament takes place around Christmas unlike the recent string of November events the 49ers have been participants of. In a recent post by DOBO Rob Perron on Basketball Travelers bulletin board Charlotte has “Several dates in Nov. available.” Which could just be the regular amount of November games, but it’s more fun to think that we have more games to schedule in November because or MTE is in December. Parties involved on different fronts with ESPN’s Cancun Governor’s Cup have been reached out to today, with no response yet.

As much alluded to on our twitter feed, the Charlotte 49ers have officially added another game to the schedule and have moved the exhibition match up versus Queens to November 2nd.

The new game, against Gardner-Webb, is scheduled to be played on Friday, November 12th at 4 PM.

fanbase upon receiving the email.

Wait.

Who schedules a game at 4 PM on a Friday afternoon? Are we trying to make sure everyone can get home for Boy Meets World? Word is that the time is 4 PM to accomodate the unmoveable volleyball match being played that evening at 7 PM. Guess that volleyball match is more important than MAJOR’S FIRST EVER HOME OPENER. The scheduling of this game is perplexing.

We couldn’t have scheduled it any earlier, November 12th is the earliest we can play a real game without being in an exempt tournament. However, why schedule this game at all? Sure, the pre-Charleston tune-up will be nice, but the RPI hit we’re going to take just by playing this game doesn’t seem worth it. Maybe it will be, who knows. What we do know is the team will get some practice playing two games in two games, since we’re still playing South Carolina State the next day at 7:30 PM.

Gardner-Webb Runnin' Bulldogs

Sunday night, an anonymous source relayed information that Gardner-Webb has expressed interest in filling the Charlotte 49ers 2010-11 Men’s Basketball Schedule.  The same sources say that our coaching staff is mulling over the decision to play the Runnin’ Bulldogs because of the potential RPI hit.  Gardner-Webb finished 318th in RPI in 2009-10, and their 95-66 defeat in Halton Arena at the hands of the 49ers didn’t not do much to help that.  The Runnin’ Bulldogs have 29 games on their schedule at the moment, but are in a 4-game Mult-Team Exempt Tournament, the Legends Classic, so they could potentially schedule 2 more games.  By setting the two schedules side-by-side 3 openings stand out:

Tuesday December 14th: Both teams play on the 11th, and Charlotte plays the 17th and Gardner-Webb plays the 18th, but this would be smack in the middle of exam week at Charlotte

Wednesday January 12th:  Our first A10 bye aligns with their first Big South bye, after playing 2 A10 road games, at Richmond and St. Bonaventure, we could use a pick me up before facing Fordham.

Wednesday February 9th: Our second A10 bye(that’s right, we get two) also aligns with another Big South bye of Gardner-Webb’s.  This date would extend a 3-game A10 homestand(with La Salle, Xavier, and George Washington) before hitting the road to Rhode Island(NO FAMILY GUY JOKES)

No guarantees that this game will be added,  but the information is reliable.  Keep checking with Green Tinted Glasses, because if the game is scheduled, we will be sure to let you know.