CLEVELAND — This wasn't a game as much as an event, a doubleheader in a pro arena. As much as Xavier's meeting with Kent State meant Saturday, it could pay off later as experience for similar events.

        “It's a tournament atmosphere, and that's important,” XU coach Skip Prosser said. “When we get to the Atlantic 10 Tournament, and hopefully the NCAAs, it's a familiar setup.”

        This Rock-N-Roll Shootout is XU's only neutral-site game this season. It was especially appealing because ESPN Regional, which arranged the matchups Saturday, made KSU agree to a visit to Cintas Center next season.

        “When you get a home game against a quality team, that's a very valuable commodity in our world,” XU athletic director Mike Bobinski said.

        XU, which played in the Great Alaska Shootout last season and the Puerto Rico Shootout the season prior, is eyeing another such tournament for the future. It is already signed up for the 2002 Preseason NIT, another “exempt” event in which any number of games played count as just one against the 27-game regular-season limit.

        Bobinski said Cincinnati-based Worldwide Basketball Inc., which produces the Puerto Rico Shootout, plans to begin a tournament in the Virgin Islands next season and that XU has been invited.

        “We're evaluating that, but we just don't have enough details yet as to what the field's going to look like, what the television might be, what the economics of it are.”

        A new NCAA rule stipulates teams may play in no more than two exempt events in any four-year period. So if XU plays in one next year and has the Preseason NIT the year after, it won't be able to schedule any such trips for the 2003-04 or 2004-05 seasons.

        If that happens, XU could still take a summer European tour or some such trip, just to continue to offer an exotic-locale trip each year for its players.

        “It's a recruiting thing, and it's an experience thing for your kids to get them to places that ordinarily none of us at that age would have a chance to go to,” Bobinski said.

        “For the exempt events, there's obviously a competitive reason to do it. You can pick up some games you ordinarily might not be able to get.

        “Like last year (in Alaska), we played Louisville, Kansas and Washington. We're not going to get games with those guys ordinarily.”

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