SPOKANE, Wash. -- Whitworth College has dropped a men's basketball game against Reed College and replaced it with a contest against UC Santa Cruz. This change is for the current 2006-07 schedule.

The Pirates had originally scheduled Reed for Sunday, December 3rd in the Whitworth Fieldhouse.

"It was a simple misunderstanding on our part about the status of the program at Reed," said Whitworth head coach, Jim Hayford. "We need to play a game that will count toward our overall record."

Reed sponsors basketball as a club-level sport, therefore the game would not have counted toward the Pirates' overall won-loss record, according to NCAA statistical and championship guidelines.

Whitworth has replaced the game with a second contest against UC Santa Cruz, which only had 24 games on its schedule. The Pirates will now play at the Banana Slugs on December 10th at 1:00 pm, in addition to the originally scheduled game in Santa Cruz, California on January 2nd, 2007.