By DON O'BRIEN
Herald-Whig Sports Editor
The last thing that Marty Bell wants to do is bite the hand that feeds him.
Over the next week, Bell's Quincy University men's basketball team will play three exhibition games against Division I opponents, starting with tonight's game at Notre Dame. While Bell would love his team to grab some notoriety by beating one of the big boys - like LeMoyne did earlier this week with it's win over Syracuse - that isn't the most important thing during this swing.
"I always play to win, but we've always used these games to evaluate what we have," Bell said. "I don't want to have to do that in a game that counts. We're better off using these situations to see what we have to work on."
After playing the Irish tonight, the Hawks will play at the University of Illinois on Sunday and finish with a Wednesday game at Illinois State. QU has played all three schools previously. Keeping those relationships healthy is important to QU. The last thing the Hawks want to do is embarrass one of those schools.
"If (Notre Dame) Coach (Mike) Brey wants to see what his team can do against a zone and I'm getting a fat check by playing them, I should probably oblige them," Bell said.
QU will receive $25,000 combined for playing the three exhibitions. Bell's thankful for the chances to put his team against Division I teams. Since the NCAA earlier this decade banned its teams from playing traveling teams in exhibitions, many Division I schools have turned to Division II, Division III and NAIA squads for its workouts.
In the last few years some Division I schools have turned to playing each other in closed-door scrimmages in order to save themselves the possible embarrassment of losing to a smaller school. This year, Great Lakes Valley Conference schools will play 21 exhibition games against Division I schools. A GLVC school has already knocked off a Division I school with Indianapolis' win at Valparaiso last Saturday.
The Hawks are in much better shape going into their exhibition slate this season than they were at this time last year. The Hawks had just seven healthy scholarship players and lost their lone exhibition, 79-44 at Missouri State.
"We feel a lot better going into this year," Bell said. "We'll be able to do more changing of our lineup and getting guys in."
Bell expects to shuffle the Hawks' lineup over the weekend. He said the team's likely starting five against the Irish would be sophomore Courtney Belger, senior Mookie Pierre and junior Josh Edmonds on the perimeter with senior Billy Baptist and junior Justin Brock down low.
Notre Dame will show off the refurbished Purcell Pavillion at 6:30 tonight. Notre Dame just finished a $26 million renovation of its basketball facility. The Irish feature one of the top players in the nation in forward Luke Harangody. He was named to the Associated Press's preseason All-American team and was named the Big East's preseason Player of the Year. The Irish were picked to finish eighth in the Big East preseason poll.
The Hawks will play in Champaign at 4 p.m. on Sunday. The Illini have been predicted to finish fifth in the Big Ten Conference by several publications. The game can be seen on BigTenNetwork.com.
QU will wrap up its exhibition season with a 7:05 p.m. game Wednesday at Illinois State. The Redbirds have been picked to finish third in the Missouri Valley Conference.
The Hawks open the regular season on Nov. 15 against Upper Iowa at Pepsi Arena.
-- dobrien@whig.com/221-3365
