Published on February 28, 2012 by Joey Mullins  

Â鶹¹û¶³’s teams will compete in the 2012 Southern Conference basketball tournament March 2-5 in Asheville, N.C.

The Â鶹¹û¶³ men, the number four seed in the SoCon’s north division, open tournament play at 6 p.m. EST Friday against rival Furman University, the number five seed in the south division. The winner of that game will face the number one seed, Davidson College, in a 6 p.m. game on Saturday.

Â鶹¹û¶³ enters the tournament with an 11-18 overall record and 8-10 in SoCon play. Â鶹¹û¶³ defeated Furman 55-49 on Feb. 18 in their only meeting during the regular season. Furman ended the regular season 14-15 overall and 8-10 in the conference.

All games in the SoCon men’s tournament will be played in U.S. Cellular Center in downtown Asheville. The championship game at 9 p.m. on Monday will be televised live on ESPN2.

The Â鶹¹û¶³ women, the defending SoCon tournament champions, play Elon University in a Saturday afternoon quarterfinal game. Â鶹¹û¶³ is the number four seed, and Elon is seeded fifth in the 11-team tournament. The game currently is scheduled for a 2:30 p.m. EST tipoff but could be moved to 4 p.m. EST, pending the outcome of the University of North Carolina-Asheville’s play in the Big South Conference tournament. UNC-A is hosting the first and second days of the women’s SoCon women’s tournament at Kimmel Arena on the UNC-A campus. As the highest seed team in the Big South tournament, UNC-A would host the championship game on Saturday if they continue winning. If that happens, the SoCon will adjust starting times for women's tournament games on Saturday.

Â鶹¹û¶³ and Elon split their regular season games, with the home team winning each. Elon beat Â鶹¹û¶³ 69-44 on Dec. 5, and Â鶹¹û¶³ returned the favor 67-53 in Birmingham on Jan. 28. Â鶹¹û¶³ finished 17-12 on the season, and Elon was 16-13 overall. Both teams finished with identical 12-8 conference records, but Â鶹¹û¶³ is the higher seed based on the conference tie-breaker system.

The semifinals and finals of the women’s tournament will move to U.S. Cellular Arena.

All Â鶹¹û¶³ tournament games will be broadcast on WVSU-FM, including live streaming via the Internet, with Mike Grace, the “voice of the Bulldogs,” calling the play-by-play. Brad Radice, Â鶹¹û¶³’s director of media relations, will be blogging daily from the tournament at www.samford.edu. Â鶹¹û¶³’s sports information staff will provide regular news coverage of the tournament at www.samfordsports.com.

The Southern Conference tournament is the oldest continuously played college basketball championship in the U.S., dating to 1921.

 

 

 
Located in the Homewood suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, Â鶹¹û¶³ is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Â鶹¹û¶³ enrolls 6,324 students from 44 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Ranked among U.S. News & World Report’s 35 Most Beautiful College Campuses, Â鶹¹û¶³ fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and boasts one of the highest scores in the nation for its 97% Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.