The UW-Parkside men’s basketball team begins a four-game road trip — covering a span of nine days and nearly 1,200 miles — in facing Bellarmine in a Great Lakes Valley Conference game 7 tonight at Knights Hall in Louisville, Ky.

If the trip wasn’t already long enough, Bellarmine coach Scott Davenport decided to add another wrinkle to the itinerary.

Originally scheduled as a 2:15 p.m. tipoff, the game was switched to 7 p.m. to avoid conflict with this afternoon’s Louisville vs. Kentucky men’s basketball game in Lexington, Ky., according to Parkside coach Luke Reigel.

The Rangers now have an extended stay in Louisville with Monday’s game against 17th-ranked Kentucky Wesleyan in Owensboro, Ky., quickly approaching.

“It’s ridiculous,” Regiel said. “The league has heard our complaints from our athletic director and chancellor and we’ve done everything we can do. When a time is moved it has to be by mutual agreement and I didn’t want to move it.”

Bellarmine issued a release on Tuesday citing “a re-interpretation of Great Lakes Valley Conference policy” for allowing the time changes. The UW-Parkside women’s basketball team is also affected with today’s game at Bellarmine beginning at 4:45 p.m. instead the original 12:15 p.m. start time.

Reigel said he’s never encountered a similar situation in seven years at Parkside.

The Rangers (6-5, 1-1) will wait a few extra hours to face a potential buzzsaw in Bellarmine (7-4, 0-2). The Knights, ranked No. 1 in the Division II preseason, opened GLVC play nearly a month ago with losses at Southern Indiana and at Kentucky Wesleyan.

Bellarmine returns four starters and nine of its top 10 scorers from last year’s team which won a school-record 26 games.

“They’re a very good basketball team,” Reigel said. “They lost to Kentucky Wesleyan which probably has its best team in seven or eight years and against Southern Indiana which is ridiculously loaded.”

The Knights boast four players averaging double figures in scoring in guards Jeremy Kendle (16 ppg), Justin Benedetti (12.1 ppg) and Braydon Hobbs (11.5 ppg) and forward Nick Holmes (11.9 ppg).

Parkside’s Grant Johnson is eighth in the GLVC in scoring (18.2 ppg) and 13th in assists (3.73 apg).

The Rangers close out the regular season with 16 straight games in the GLVC. After facing Kentucky Wesleyan on Monday, the Rangers complete their current road trip with games at Illinois-Springfield on Thursday and at Saint Joseph’s next Saturday.