After the Pitt-Western Michigan game, there will be a ceremony to honor the late Maggie Dixon.

Dixon’s parents, Jim and Marge, from North Hollywood, Calif, will be given a pair of Patriot League championship rings.

The team’s Patriot League championship banner and Dixon’s Patriot League Coach of the Year banner will be hoisted to the rafters at 5,000-seat Christl Arena, where they will remain.

This tournament will be moving to MSG next year and become an all-women’s b-ball premeire event.

Today’s double-header features teams with coaches who had some connection to Maggie Dixon.

[WMU Assistant Coach Jeff] Dunlap’s relationship with Maggie Dixon was mostly through Jamie Dixon, whom he grew up playing against in North Hollywood, Calif., and has remained close with through the Complete Player Basketball Camps in southern California, which Dunlap runs.

WMU head coach Steve Hawkins also is friends with Jamie Dixon, with the two having met at Dunlap’s camp.

“They wanted to bring in (coaches) who know the family,” Dunlap said. “Jamie thought it’d be nice for us to come in aand share in this tribute classic for Maggie.

“We wanted to do it for that reason. On the flip side, it helps our program. Hawk and I want to play a nationally respectable schedule. … You have to play people who, on paper, are better than you and go after them. That’s what we’re doing.”

With so much of the Dixon family still living in the New York area, there will be hundreds of friends and family attending.