Photo by Stephen Dachman 

The Matadome, the high school size gymnasium of Big West Conference foe Cal State Northridge holds a whopping 1,600 people. While the 49ers traveled to the largest on-campus arena in the country last season to take on the Orange of Syracuse, at the Carrier Dome in New York, 2009 will take them to maybe the most hallowed college gym in the country 23,000 seat Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.

While much smaller, but maybe more intense Cameron Indoor Stadium, home of the Duke Blue Devils will also be the site of a LBSU men’s basketball contest.

Kentucky and Duke have 10 national titles and 27 Final Four appearances between them. Long Beach State has none.

Then again, when you are trying to rebuild a program like coach Dan Monson is you want to send your team against the best opponents you can to try and improve, while also gaining national recognition along the way.

Besides, consider the possibilities: The ‘Niners could bring Monson revenge against his former employer Minnesota, beat the UCLA Bruins in a regional battle against the best basketball school on the West coast and take it to the golden domers of Notre Dame.

Those possible tests (Minnesota and UCLA are in the 8-team 76 Classic field with LBSU but the match-ups have yet to be determined) don’t even include three potential preseason top 10 foes in Texas, Kentucky and Duke. These perennial powerhouses will host The Beach in December as the ‘Niners look to make a big splash on SportsCenter.

Imagine rolling into Austin and knocking off Rick Barnes’ Longhorns. Or ruining Ashley Judd’s Christmas with a monumental upset of John Calipari’s loaded new-look Wildcats. Or quieting the Cameron Crazies and making Coach K wish he was up the road from LBSU with a purple-and-gold Laker tie.

Make no mistake, winning any one of these games will be a tall order. Led by the LBC’s T-L-C (TJ Robinson, Casper Ware and Larry Anderson) the Beach’s super sophomore trio and 2008-2009 all-conference returners LBSU will continue to improve but beating these caliber schools may be asking a bit much.

But Dan Monson knows what he’s doing. Scheduling games like these is exactly what it will take to get the Beach from the middle-of-the-pack in the Big West into Mid-Major power and Cinderella darling come late March.

He had his second straight good recruiting class and while this year’s has more fanfare than its predecessor the foundation is very strong and very young.

Year one of the Monson era at Long Beach State was as forgettable as the movie with the same moniker. While the ex-Gonzaga coach who led that team to an Elite Eight wasn’t exactly inheriting the ’96 Bulls, Donovan Morris was the lone bright spot in a brutal campaign.

Year two was as exciting as it was optimisitc. The team battled hard in tough early tests at Wisconsin and BYU, caught fire at the beginning of Big West play, before stumbling down the stretch in one and done fashion in Anaheim despite being the number two seed.

Nevertheless the .500 campaign brought a lot of hope for the future of LBSU hoops, and now year three could be the springboard to returning to the Big Dance.

With the majority of the team’s brightest stars still underclassmen or yet to even don the black and gold, the non-conference schedule may seem a bit overzealous but Monson’s fiery persona has never-back-down written all over it and there is no doubting he will be expecting just that kind of attitude from his squad when they hit the road to face some of the most storied programs in the nation.