Mason's Lindner Family Tennis Center will host outdoor college basketball for the first time on Wednesday, October 7, when Ohio State, Cincinnati, Dayton and Xavier square off in the CareSource Invitational.

The event brings all four of Ohio's Division I basketball programs to one venue for a preseason doubleheader. Ohio State faces Cincinnati and Dayton takes on Xavier in exhibition games played on a temporary outdoor court built on the tennis center's grounds.

The City of Mason's Economic Development office announced the event on Friday, calling it "a first for the Lindner Family Tennis Center" and a sign of the renovated campus's expanded role beyond the Cincinnati Open.

Despite the tennis venue setting, this is a basketball event. The CareSource Invitational series launched in 2023 when Dayton hosted Ohio State in a sold-out charity game that raised approximately $500,000 for adolescent and young adult mental health and suicide prevention initiatives, according to CareSource.

The series benefits Jay's Light, a nonprofit fund founded by Dayton head basketball coach Anthony Grant and his wife Chris in memory of their daughter Jayda, who died in 2022 at age 20 as a result of mental illness.

Ohio State head coach Jake Diebler told Eleven Warriors he has pushed for this kind of Ohio-schools collaboration since taking the job. "Getting all four teams together and doing it in a venue like that, it's exciting," Diebler said. "I'm excited that it's outdoors. I've never been a part of a live game outside like that."

The venue itself underwent a $260 million renovation completed for the 2025 Cincinnati Open, funded collectively by the City of Mason, Warren County, and the State of Ohio, according to Spectrum News. The campus grew from 17 to 31 courts and expanded from 20 to 40 acres. The 2025 tournament drew a record 285,571 fans.