Both Chadron State College basketball teams will play exhibition games against major college opponents in the next few days.

The CSC women will play at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln on Friday night and the men will tangle with Colorado State in Fort Collins on Monday night. The CSC men will also play at Nebraska on Friday, Nov. 7.

The exhibition game with the NU women is expected to be a big challenge for the CSC women, who have been practicing just two weeks and are learning a new system under a new coach.

“We will show up and play hard,” the new coach, Tim Connealy promised. “You can’t do too much about some things that happen in a game, but you can play hard and play together. That’s what we expect to do.”

Connealy, who inherited eight players from last year’s 9-18 team, said the Eagles have had some good and some not-so-good practices.

“We’ve been up and down. We have a lot of work to do, but I believe we’re ready to see where we’re at,” the coach said.

The Eagles’ first official game will be on Nov. 15 at Southwest State University.

Three of the returnees started at least 23 of last year’s 27 games. They are senior Chelsea DeHaven and juniors Sunni Busch and Samantha Arkulari. Another starter last year until she suffered a knee injury was senior Kristy Long, who has been slowed by an injury to the other knee during preseason workouts.

The other letterwinners are senior Whitney Segelke, juniors Alyssa Lyman and Vanessa Schroeder and sophomore Trysta Gruber.

The Cornhuskers return a dozen players from last year’s team that finished at 21-12 and earned its second straight NCAA Tournament berth, then won the school’s first game in the Big Dance since 1998. The leader is 6-foot-2 forward Kelsey Griffin, who averaged 16.8 points and 8.2 rebounds in conference action a year ago. She’s a two-time all-Big 12 selection and is billed as an All-American candidate this season.

The Huskers also include 6-2 Cory Montgomery and 6-4 Nikki Bober, along with all six players who saw action in the backcourt last season. Among the latter group is point guard Yvonne Turner, who averaged 9.8 points in Big 12 play last season and hit five 3-pointers in the NCAA Tournament game against Maryland.

The Chadron State men also played Colorado State in an exhibition game a year ago. The Rams won 107-76. They return seven lettermen from last year’s 7-25 team, including the leading scorer, guard Marcus Walker, who averaged 17.1 points a game.

Another guard, Willis Gardner, averaged 9.8 points last season, while 6-6 Andre McFarland averaged 8.3. McFarland tallied 25 points and guard Josh Simmons, who also returns, scored 21 against the Eagles last year.

Five Eagles scored in double figures for CSC in the exhibition game last year with Tim McLaren’s 12 points being the high total. Marco deSouza and Tyler Coffman each added 11. All three players are back this season.

CSC Coach Brent Bargen said Monday that the Eagles had gone through 13 practices and only one of them was bad.

“I like our kids. They play hard, are coachable and have good chemistry,” Bargen said.

The roster includes 13 players and only four of them played last year. The fourth is Stacy McAlister. DeSouza is the team’s only senior. Coffman is the only junior. McLaurin and McAlister are sophomores and the remaining nine players are freshmen.

The fact that Moala Tautuaa and Julian Pettway were on the roster as redshirts a year ago should give the team more continuity than might be anticipated. Coffman, McAlister, Tautuaa and Pettway are all in the neighborhood of 6-6 to give the team decent overall height.