Jayhawk basketball fans traveling to New York City for tonight’s Preseason NIT consolation game will hear a familiar voice singing the national anthem.

Lillian Sengpiehl, who sang “The Star Spangled Banner” at Kansas University basketball games in Lawrence from 1989 to 1993, will sing the anthem for the NIT games at Madison Square Garden.

“It’s so great,” Sengpiehl said. “We’re going to be sitting in the KU fan section. You’d be surprised how many KU alums go to this here in New York. There’s quite the festivities, with different events planned. It’s so much fun to meet people who went to KU.”

Sengpiehl will sing the national anthem before the 5:30 p.m. game between Kansas and Florida. She’ll then sing “God Bless America” before the 8 p.m. championship game between North Carolina and Stanford.

Sengpiehl graduated from KU in 1993, then studied at the Manhattan School of Music. She now lives in New York City, where she does studio work and opera performance.

Sengpiehl said KU athletics officials lobbied the NIT for her to perform at tonight’s games. She said she wasn’t sure how much different singing the national anthem in Madison Square Garden, capacity 19,763, would be than performing in Allen Fieldhouse, capacity 16,300.

“We’ll find out,” Sengpiehl said. “I’ll get back to you on that one.”

Kansas University graduate and opera singer Lillian Sengpiehl belts out the national anthem at the March 4, 2001, Kansas-Missouri basketball game in Allen Fieldhouse.

She had an encore performance in February at the fieldhouse after she was asked to perform for the KU-Missouri basketball game.

Sengpiehl’s father, Dick Sengpiehl of Lawrence, will be at the game today. He flew to New York for Thanksgiving.

Sengpiehl and her husband are planning to move to San Francisco. She plans to begin performing both in New York and in West Coast productions.

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Though she’s performed in Carnegie Hall and starred in operas – she recently completed the Russian opera “Guest from the Future” – she said her Allen Fieldhouse performances ranked among her most memorable.

“I loved to sing for the games at home,” she said. “I had such a good time doing that.”