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03.02.07
- The NAIA released the National Tournament bracket
and there was no surprise for the 4th-ranked Foresters
(29-4), who drew the fourth seed in the pairings. Making their
seventh trip to Branson in eight years, the Foresters will face
the Florida Memorial Lions (15-12) of Miami, Florida in first round
action on Thursday, March 8 at 5:45 p.m. (CST). [Listen
to
Live Broadcast on WQHU]
The tournament,
which is hosted by College of the Ozarks (Mo.), will take place at
Keeter Gymnasium in Point Lookout, and the 30 games prior to the
championship game will be
video streamed live on the Internet.
Additionally, the national championship game will air live
nationwide on CSTV.
The Lions
received the Florida Sun Conference's automatic bid by winning their
conference tournament as the #3 seed. They knocked off the #4
seed, Embry Riddle, 61-59 in the championship game.
Bellevue University (31-1) garnered the
tournaments' top seed and will begin play against Fisher College
(12-17) on Wednesday at noon (CST). The College of the Ozarks (20-10), the
defending National Champions, will face off against the University of
St. Francis (IN), the 14th-seed, Wednesday at 8:00 p.m.
In their opening
match-up, the Foresters will have to contend with a very athletic
Florida Memorial squad that holds the sixth spot in NAIA Division II with their
10.4 steals per game. HU will also have to find a way to slow
down the NAIA's leading scorer, 6'4 sophomore Tramaine Stevens, who is
averaging 26.8 points per game. Two other Lions are averaging in
double figures with 6'4 junior Daniel Garcia at 16.8 and 6'2 sophomore
Andre Beauford at 10.9 points per game.
The Foresters have
a trio of double digit scorers with senior Alex Kock, the MCC
Player of the Year, leading the team with his 23.3 average. Kock
recorded 19 double-doubles in points and rebounds during the regular season.
Senior Kyle Ganton, who is second in Division II in free throw
percentage at 89.9% and sixth in 3-point field goal
percentage at 48%, averages 18.9
points each game, and junior Doug Sheckler adds 13.0 per contest.
As a team, HU will enter the tournament with the best team free throw
percentage (80.1%) and 3-point field goal percentage (43.2%) in
Division II.
Florida Memorial
scores an average of 72.6 points per game and gives up 72.0 to
opponents while the Foresters score 80.7 points and allow 69.7.
The Lions shot 43.0% from the field while HU has knocked down 50.6% of
its field goals. Florida Memorial commits 17.5 turnovers a game to
11.9 for HU. The winner of the game will face the winner of the
Mayville State University (ND) (23-9) / William Penn University (IA)
(25-8) game at 9:15 p.m. (CST) on Friday, March 9.
Complete
Tournament Bracket |
