The GW men’s basketball team will host Virginia Commonwealth University Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the opening round of the College Basketball Invitational tournament, Director of Athletics Jack Kvancz said late Sunday night. The game will be broadcast on HDNet.

VCU, which is located in Richmond, Va., went 22-9 this season. Its best two wins coming against Atlantic 10 schools (Rhode Island and Richmond) that combined to go 3-0 against GW this year. The Rams and Colonials had six common opponents this past season. VCU went 7-1 in games against those teams (playing George Mason and UNC-Wilmington twice) and GW went 4-3 (playing Richmond twice).

The Rams’ are led by 6-foot-11 junior forward Larry Sanders, who averaged 14.6 points and nine rebounds per game this season. Junior guard Joey Rodriguez was second on VCU in scoring with 12.2 points per game and led the team with 5.8 assists per outing.

A year ago, the 11th-seeded Rams lost by one point to UCLA lost by one point to UCLA in the first round of the NCAA tournament. College basketball fans might remember VCU’s dramatic upset of Duke in the first round of the 2007 NCAA tournament. Eric Maynor, VCU’s top player on those two teams, is currently a member of the NBA’s Utah Jazz Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Colonials and Rams have played just once, when VCU beat GW 74-64 at a tournament in Charlottesville, Va., in the first game of the 1978-79 season.

This year’s CBI tournament will be the third ever. The tournament features 16 teams, five of which GW has played this year: fellow Atlantic 10 members Saint Louis and Duquesne along with Princeton, Boston University and defending CBI champion Oregon State.

The winner of the GW-VCU game will play the winner of Tuesday’s game between Eastern Kentucky and College of Charleston in the quarterfinals of the tournament.