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Tennessee will play a men's basketball game at Middle Tennessee State on Nov. 21 this season, the night before the Vols play a football game at Vanderbilt.

But don't expect UT basketball coach Bruce Pearl to get caught up in the excitement of what figures to be a Big Orange weekend in Middle Tennessee until after the final buzzer sounds.

The Vols scored a 109-40 win over the Blue Raiders - the second-largest margin in UT history - when the teams met in Thompson-Boling Arena last November.

"It's going to be a very tough place to play,'' Pearl said. "We played as good as we could play that night, and that's a team that wound up playing for the Sun Belt Conference championship.''

Middle Tennessee returns its top seven players from a team that finished 17-15.

This will be the third meeting in a five-game contract between the teams. The next year's game (2009) will be played in Nashville's Sommet Center before the contract concludes with a game in Knoxville the following season.

But Pearl's not looking past the next meeting, and he's encouraging UT fans to purchase tickets to support the Vols in Murfreesboro as soon as possible.

"Playing them at that time (the night before the Vanderbilt game) could give this a very special atmosphere,'' Pearl said. "As you would expect, they will sell as many tickets to Blue Raiders' fans as possible.

"But with our football team playing in Nashville, this is an opportunity for our fans to be aggressive and get their tickets as soon as possible.'' Middle Tennessee State coach Kermit Davis told the Daily News Journal he expects a sellout, and also said he expects a strong performance from the Blue Raiders. "Every guy on our team will walk into the arena that night expecting a win,'' Davis said.

Middle Tennessee State also has a home football game the day after the basketball meeting with the Vols, playing host to Sun Belt Conference rival North Texas.

UT played MTSU in men's basketball in Murfreesboro in 1988, losing 85-80 an NIT game, before a crowd of 11,520.

Remaining Schedule: The Vols have not officially released their entire men's basketball schedule and won't until the SEC grants its approval in early August. Other UT non-conference game dates have been released, however. Here's a tentative list of opponents and dates: Old Spice Classic (Orlando, Fla.), Nov. 27-30, opponents yet to be named; at Temple, Dec. 13; Marquette, in Nashville, Dec. 16; at Kansas, Jan. 3; home vs. Gonzaga, Jan. 7; home vs. Memphis, Jan. 24. UT also is also expected to have home games against Chattanooga, UT-Martin, Belmont and Louisiana-Lafayette, but dates for the contests have not been released.

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.