Gents To Face Nebraska Wesleyan University In NCAA Tournament Opener
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament champion Centenary men's basketball team will face Nebraska Wesleyan University on Friday, March 1, at 5:05 p.m. in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Division III Men's Basketball Championship at Calgaard Gym inside the Bell Center on the campus of Trinity University in San Antonio, it was announced on Monday.
Link to Digital Official Souvenir Program: https://www.ncaa.com/DIIIMensBasketball
The Gents (17-11) and the Prairie Wolves (23-4) will play the first game of the day followed by Trinity (23-3) facing the University of Texas at Dallas (18-9) in game two at approximately 7:35 p.m. Centenary and Nebraska Wesleyan will meet for the first time in history. The winners of Friday's games will meet at 7:35 p.m. on Saturday. Centenary is making its second appearance in the NCAA Tournament and first since 2020 when the Gents lost a heartbreaker to UT-Dallas in Richardson, Texas by a score of 83-81.
Nebraska Wesleyan, located in Lincoln, Neb., won the American Rivers Conference regular-season crown but fell in overtime to Loras College in the conference tournament. The Prairie Wolves, currently ranked #19 in the country in the latest D3hoops.com Top 25 poll, are making their 18th NCAA Division III Tournament appearance and have made five NCAA D3 Final Four appearances, winning the 2018 NCAA III National Championship and finishing as the runner-up in 1997. This will also be the first time in history the SCAC and ARC have squared off in the NCAA Tournament.
The UT-Dallas Comets earned the automatic bid from the American Southwest Conference by defeating Hardin-Simmons 78-77 on Saturday. The ASC tournament championship is the fifth in program history for UT-Dallas and the first since 2019. Despite dropping a 71-70 decision to Colorado College in Saturday's SCAC semifinal, #15 Trinity earned one of 22 at-large (Pool-C) bids into the NCAA Tournament. This will be Trinity's 12th NCAA Tournament appearance and second in the last three years.
The bracket features 64 teams and Automatic qualification (AQ) is granted to 42 conference champions, which form "Pool A." The remaining 22 teams are selected from those teams in conferences with automatic bids that did not win their conference's AQ and the remaining Pool B institutions (Pool C). The teams are geographically paired, whenever possible.
Sixteen sites will host four teams for first- and second-round competition Friday-Saturday, March 1-2. Second-round winners will advance to one of four sectional sites March 8-9. Winners of the four sectional championship games will advance to the semi-finals and finals March 14 and 16. All games, except the semi-finals and finals, will be played on the campuses of competing institutions. The semi-finals and finals will be held at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The Gents and Tigers are joined by a third SCAC school as the University of St. Thomas Celts (20-6) earned at an-large berth and will face Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (20-6) in first round action at host California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California. Three SCAC schools will play in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1995.
Relive the Gents' SCAC title victory here: https://www.gocentenary.com/sports/mbkb/2023-24/releases/Gents_Basketball_-_2024_SCAC_Tournament_Champs
See the complete Gents' season schedule here: https://www.gocentenary.com/sports/mbkb/2023-24/schedule
Live stats and live video stream are available for all Centenary home contests.