Aziz N’Diaye, on a breakaway dunk against Arizona, is one of three returning starters for Lorenzo Romar. He made the Pac-12′s All-Defensive team last season. / Drew Sellers, Sportspress Northwest

GAME: Loyola-Maryland (24-9 overall, 13-5, Metro Atlantic in 2011-12) at Washington (24-11 overall, 14-4, Pac-12 in 2011-12). WHEN: Sunday, 5 p.m., Alaska Airlines Arena. TYPE: Tournament/Tip-Off Hall of Fame Classic. MEETING: 1st. RANKINGS: Neither school ranked. COACHES: Jimmy Patsos, Loyola, Md.; Lorenzo Romar, Washington. TV: Pac-12 Networks. RADIO: KJR 950-AM.

Lorenzo Romar’s University of Washington men’s basketball team, picked to finish fifth in the Pac-12 Conference race, begins the 111th season in school history in the Tip-Off Hall of Fame Classic against the Loyola (Md.) Greyhounds, an NCAA Tournament team last season and a school the Huskies have never played.

With Terrence Ross (16.4 ppg) and Tony Wroten (16.0), Washington’s top two scorers last season, now in the NBA, and Darnell Gant having exhausted his eligibility, the Huskies return three starters or part-time starters from a 24-11 team that also failed to win the NIT: guards Abdul Gaddy and C.J. Wilcox and center Aziz N’Diaye. UW also gets back senior guard Scott Suggs, who sat out all of last season with a broken foot.

The three guards, Gaddy, Wilcox and Suggs, will start, along with center N’Diaye. The fifth spot at power forward has yet to be determined. But it won’t be Shawn Kemp Jr., the 6-9 sophomore who is out six to eight weeks with a knee injury.

Washington returns 47.3 percent of its scoring and 57.3 percent of its rebounding from last year’s team.

Two newcomers are expected to make significant impacts. Jernard Jarreau and Andrew Andrews will make their debuts after sitting out 2011-12 as redshirts. Both will be counted on to contribute immediately. Andrews is expected to receive significant minutes off the bench to spell the guards, while Jarreau is one of the primary candidates for the fifth starting spot.

The Huskies were picked to finish fourth in the conference race last season, but won the regular-season championship. The last time the Huskies were picked to finish fifth was 2009, when they also wound up winning the conference.

Washington will play four games in the Tip-Off Hall of Fame Classic, which will be held on the East and West coasts. The Huskies host Albany Tuesday and then travel to Uncasville, CT., for a Nov. 17 meeting with Seton Hall. The following day, Washington will meet the winner of the Ohio State-Rhode Island game.

Under Romar, Washington has won 20 games for four consecutive seasons, a first in school history. In those campaigns, UW has captured two regular-season conference titles and two Pac-12 tournament championships.

Washington has also amassed 100 wins over the last four years, the first time in program history the Huskies have reached the century mark in any four-year span.

In the Loyola Greyhounds, the Huskies will face a club that went 24-9 last season,  finished second in the Metro Atlantic Conference with a 13-5 record, and won the MAAC tournament to advance to the NCAAs.

Loyola has four returning starters, led by senior Erik Etherly, their leading scorer last year averaging 13.7 points. Etherly also led the Greyhounds in blocks and rebounding. Junior guard Dylon Cormier averaged 13.1 points and led the team in steals with 51. He was second-team All-MAAC. Senior guard Robert Olson had a game-high 13 rebounds vs. Seton Hill in an exhibition game along with leading the team in scoring with 21 points.

The Greyhounds opened their season Friday night by throttling Binghamton 71-45. Cormier scored 21 points and sparked Loyola runs of 19-0 and 20-5.

SERIES: First meeting,played, The Huskies have played Loyola Marymount five times (UW leads 4-1) and Loyola-New Orleans (1-1) twice.

UW STATS / NOTES

• SEASON SUMMARY: Record: 0-0. Home: 0-0. Road: 0-0. Neutral: 0-0. Vs. Pac-12: 0-0. Vs. Pac-12 North: 0-0. Vs. Pac-12 South: 0-0. Vs. Non-Conference: 0-0. Points: 0 (0.00). Field Goal Pct.: .000. 3-Pt. FG Pct.: .000. Free Throw Pct.: .000. Rebounds: (0.00) 0-0. Assists: 0 (0.00). Steals: 0 (0.00). Points Against: 0 (0.00). Opp. FG Pct.: .000. Opp. 3-Pt. FG Pct.: .000. Opp FT Pct.: .000. Opp. Rebounds: 0 (0.00) : Opp. Assists: 0 (0.00). Opp. Steals: 0 (0.00). Ratings Percentage Index (RPI): 0.00.
• UW is 8-2 in season-openers under Lorenzo Romar, losing its home opener just once during the coach’s 11-year tenure. UW lost the 2002-03 inaugural vs. Montana State and last lost a season-opener at Portland in 2008-09. The Huskies have won three straight since.
• UW enters the season with a record of 1,665-1,079 (.607) to rank 15th among the all-time winningest schools in the NCAA. Kentucky leads with 2,090 victories. Among Pac-12 schools, only No. 8 UCLA (1,728) and No. 12 Utah (1,670) have more wins. Oregon State is the next closest with 1,640 wins to rank 20th.
• Point guard Abdul Gaddy is the Pac-12′s leading active player with 312 assists.
• Senior center Aziz N’Diaye, a native Dakar, Senegal, enters the year eighth all-time on the UW list for career blocks.
• Washington will have new faces on the bench. Joining the staff are Brad Jackson and Lamont Smith. Jackson joins the Huskies after leading Western Washington to the 2012 NCAA Division II championship. He spent 27 years as head coach for the Vikings before making the move to Seattle after Raphael Chillious left the Huskies’ bench to become an assistant at Villanova. Smith joined Romar’s staff soon after Jackson, reuniting with his former boss. Smith spent the last five years as an assistant at Arizona State, but got his coaching start under Romar at Saint Louis from 1999-2000. Smith replaces Paul Fortier, who moves to the new position of Director of Player Personnel and Recruiting.
• Since 2004-2005 — Romar’s third season at UW — the Huskies have won 190 games, the most ever in any eight-year span of UW basketball. Romar has averaged 21.9 wins per season during his 10-year UW career and has amassed four of the seven best single-season win totals in UW history. Romar earned his sixth 20-win season in 2012, including a school record four-consecutive seasons, and only trails Hec Edmundson’s 11 seasons with 20+ wins.

UW HEAD COACH: Lorenzo Romar is in his 11th seaso and is coming off a season in which the Huskies won the Pac-12 regular-season title. Romar has taken the Huskies to the NCAA Tournament six times and won three Pac-10 Tournament titles (2005, 2010, 2011). Romar, who signed a 10-year contract extension in April 2011, won his his 200th game at Washington Dec. 16, 2011. He had his 300th career victory and his 100th as a conference coach on Jan. 21, 2012. Romar was selected the Pac-12 Coach of the Year for the third time in his career.

Romar played for the Huskies under head coach Marv Harshman during the 1979-80 seasons (served as team captain his senior year), and had a five-year NBA career with Golden State (1981-84), Milwaukee (1984) and Detroit (1984-85). He became a college head coach at Pepperdine in 1997, where he coached for three seasons, then spent three years (1999-02) at St. Louis University before taking the Washington job in 2002-03.

2011-12 Washington Statistics

LOYOLA (MD.) HEAD COACH: Jimmy Patsos, head coach at Loyola since 2004, is in his ninth year. Under Patsos, the Greyhounds won a school-record 24 games in 2011-12, captured the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament opposite Ohio State. Patsos is a Boston native, grew up attending games at the Boston Garden, and is a graduate of Catholic University.

COMING UP: The Huskies play Albany in the second round of the Tip-Off Hall of Fame Classic Tuesday at home, then continue tournament play against Seton Hall in Uncasville, CT., Nov. 17.

University of Washington 2012-13 Schedule

(Rankings From USA Today)

@=Exhibition; *=Hall of Fame Classic; ^=Pac-12 Tournament; #=NCAA Tournament