Queens, Winthrop set to square off in Rock Hill in first game of 2025 college basketball season

ROCK HILL, S.C. (CAROLINA SPORTS LIVE) — Queens and Winthrop, two schools separated by 20 miles, will face off in the first game of their college basketball seasons in the Field of 68 Opening Day Marathon, Queens Athletics announced on Tuesday.

The opening day marathon will feature six games on November 3. Three games will be at the Rock Hill Sports and Event Center in Rock Hill and the other three games will be in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Queens and Winthrop will be featured in the first game at 8 a.m. in Rock Hill.

“As a program, we couldn’t be more honored to be asked to play in an event like this,” Queens head coach Grant Leonard said. “Queens and Winthrop is a huge game on our non-conference schedule. It matters in this area, and for it to be the opening game of the college basketball season is a big deal!”

This will be the eighth meeting all time between the Eagles and the Royals. Winthrop won five of the seven meetings, including the last four. The most recent matchup between the cross-town rivals was on December 3, 2024, where Winthrop won 86-78.

A total of 12 teams will take part in the Field of 68 Opening Day Marathon. Those six games are:

• Winthrop vs. Queens (8:00 a.m./Rock Hill, S.C.)
• St. Bonaventure vs. Bradley (11:00 a.m./Rock Hill, S.C.)
• Murray State vs. Omaha (1:30 p.m./Sioux Falls, S.D.)
• Drake vs. Northern Arizona (4:00 p.m./Sioux Falls, S.D.)
• High Point vs. Furman (6:30 p.m./Rock Hill, S.C.)
• South Dakota State vs. Merrimack (9:00 p.m./Sioux Falls, S.D.)

“We are honored to be involved in this event, which has some of the elite programs in the country that exist outside the sport’s traditional power structure,” Field of 68 founder Rob Dauster said. “This is a great opportunity for us to be able to provide more coverage for these teams that frankly don’t get enough. What we do at the Field of 68 is try and give teams at all levels the coverage they deserve.”

Queens is coming off their third Division I season in the Atlantic Sun. Last season, they recorded 20 wins for the first time in D-I and the 19th time in school history. This season will be the first in which Queens Athletics can participate in NCAA postseason competition.

Tickets will go on sale beginning September 5th on TicketReturn for the games in Rock Hill.