SFA To Host High Point In Bracket Busters Game
1/30/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 30, 2012
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - The Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks received their draw for their 2012 Sears Bracket Busters game on Monday and will host High Point on Feb. 18 at William R. Johnson Coliseum.
The game will be part of a doubleheader with the Ladyjacks taking on Texas State at 4:00 p.m. in conference action, followed by the men with a tentative start time of 6:00 p.m. scheduled.
High Point is a member of the Big South Conference and is currently8-14 on the year with a 4-8 mark in conference play. The Panthers have dropped six of their last eight games, but most recently knocked off Winthrop for the second time this year to put an end to a five-game losing streak. It will be the first-ever meeting between the schools and the first time the Panthers have ever played a game in the state of Texas.
HPU is led by senior guard Nick Barbour, the Big South preseason player of the year, who has scored in double figures in 20 of the Panthers' 20 games and is leading the conference in scoring at 19.5 points per game.
The Panthers will have just one league game following their trip to Nacogdoches, opening the Big South Conference Tournament on Feb. 27.
The `Jacks have played in the Bracket Busters event once before, in 2006 - also on Feb. 18 - when they traveled to Louisiana-Lafayette and dropped a 66-63 decision despite a then career-high 19 points and seven rebounds from Gerald Fonzie.
The 10th annual Sears BracketBusters is a three-day men's college basketball event pitting potential NCAA Championship hopefuls against each other Feb. 17-19. The NCAA hopefuls are selected from a pool of 142 teams from 16 conferences, making this the largest Sears BracketBusters pool in the event's history, which includes two team that reached the 2011 Final Four in Houston.
As part of the agreement, all 13 of the Sears BracketBusters home teams in televised games, as well as the remaining 58 home squads, will play a return game at the home facility of their opponent in November or December of the 2013-14 season.
All 12 Southland Conference teams will participate in the event this season. League teams with home games in this year's BracketBusters in addition to SFA include McNeese State, Nicholls State, Northwestern State, Sam Houston State and Southeastern Louisiana. The other eight teams, including Central Arkansas, Lamar, UT Arlington, UTSA, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Texas State, will have road games.
The 142-team field features teams from 16 conferences: 12 each from Colonial Athletic Association, Mid-American Conference and Southland; 11 each from Ohio Valley Conference and Big South; 10 each from Horizon League, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, Missouri Valley and Summit League; nine each from America East, Big Sky and Big West; eight from the Western Athletic Association; four from the Southern Conference; three from the MEAC; and two from the West Coast Conference.
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