UNM head basketball coach Steve Alford last week on 610 KNML-AM announced the program has entered into a four-year deal with ESPN for November tournaments through the 2016-17 season.

Monday, assistant coach Duane Broussard explained the specifics on when and where those would be and why the program wanted to lock in on such an agreement.

“We thought moving forward that instead of scrambling every year to get a tournament to get in, we thought that going four years out would be the best way to go,” Broussard said.

He also said the exposure of ESPN owning the tournaments, thus broadcasting and covering them, helps Lobos basketball.

Here is the schedule for the next four seasons for early season, November basketball tournaments for the Lobos (w/ links to the websites for those tournaments this season):

• 2013-14: Charleston (South Carolina) Classic (tournament site)
• 2014-15: Puerto Rico Tip-Off (tournament site)
• 2015-16: Diamond Head Classic in Hawaii (tournament site)
• 2016-17: DirecTv Classic (formerly the Anaheim Classic) in California (tournament site)

The Lobos play this season in the Paradise Jam tournament in the U.S. Virgin Islands Nov. 16-19, an event sponsored by Basketball Travelers, Inc.