COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio State women's basketball team will face UConn in the Maggie Dixon Classic Dec. 19, MSG Sports and the Dixon Family announced Wednesday. Joining the Buckeyes and Huskies in the fifth-annual event at Madison Square Garden are Rutgers and Texas A&M.

The six-time defending Big Ten champion Buckeyes and head coach Jim Foster will face fellow hall of fame head coach Geno Auriemma  and the Huskies in the second game of a doubleheader. It will be Ohio State's second appearance in the Maggie Dixon Classic, while UConn, back-to-back defending NCAA champions, will make its second appearance in three years in the Classic.
  
Making their fourth appearance in the Maggie Dixon Classic, Rutgers, led by Hall of Fame head coach C. Vivian Stringer, will take to the court against Gary Blair's defending Big 12 Tournament champion Texas A&M. This will mark Texas A&M's first appearance in the Classic.

All four head coaches participating in the 2010 Maggie Dixon Classic are ranked in the Top 20 among active coaches in winning percentage.  Between the four coaches there are a total of 2,857 victories.

Tickets for the Maggie Dixon Classic start at $15 and go on sale at noon Thursday. They can be purchased at the Madison Square Garden box office, all Ticketmaster locations and online at www.thegarden.com.  Madison Square Garden's full college basketball schedule will be announced at a later date. It will be the fourth-consecutive season Madison Square Garden will serve as hosts of the premier event. 
 
The Maggie Dixon Classic is held annually in memory of the former Army Black Knights women's basketball coach.  On April 6, 2006, the women's college basketball community lost a young Maggie Dixon, who died from an undiagnosed heart condition.  Over the course of her six months as head coach at the United States Military Academy, she led the program to unprecedented heights; the Black Knights played in their first Patriot League Championship and Dixon led her team to their first ever NCAA Tournament appearance. 

More than 325,000 Americans die every year from sudden cardiac arrest and Madison Square Garden will again team with the Dixon family to host a Heart Health Fair.  All fans are encouraged to attend the Heart Health Fair to help raise awareness of heart related illness.