(Portions of this story courtesy of NCAAsports.com and Texas Lutheran University Athletics)
SEGUIN, Texas – The 2016 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference men’s basketball champion, Texas Lutheran University, will make its second consecutive appearance in the NCAA Division III Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament as the Bulldogs play host to Hardin-Simmons University in first round play Thursday evening in Seguin. Interactive Bracket
The game will be played in TLU's Memorial Gymnasium and is scheduled to tip on Thursday, March 3 at 7 p.m. CT. Tickets for the game will be sold at the door. Pass lists will not be honored, and all TLU students, faculty and staff will need a ticket for admission. Game ticket pricing will be announced later today.
TLU will have live coverage of the game on tlubulldogs.com with a live video webcast and live stats. Seguin radio station KWED 1580 AM will have the audio call. An audio-only webcast will be available on seguintoday.com.
TLU (21-6) defeated Colorado College on Sunday in Shreveport, La., for a second consecutive SCAC title.
Hardin-Simmons (18-10), out of Abilene, Texas, defeated Louisiana College 91-79 Saturday in the American Southwest Conference Championship.
TLU and HSU met earlier in the season, in Seguin, and the Bulldogs posted a 99-89 overtime home win over the Cowboys.
Forty-three conferences have been granted automatic qualification for the 2016 championship, while 19 other at-large teams from the remaining independent teams and automatic-qualifying conferences who did not receive their conference automatic qualification (Pool C) were selected by using specific selection criteria approved by the Division III Championships Committee.
Two first-round games will be conducted Thursday, March 3 with the winners advancing to play Saturday, March 5 against teams that received first-round byes. Fourteen sites will host four teams for first and second-round competition Friday-Saturday, March 4-5. Second-round winners will advance to one of four sectional-round sites March 11-12. Winners of the four sectional games will advance to the semi-finals and finals March 18 and 19. All games, except the semi-finals and finals, will be played on the campuses of competing institutions. The semi-finals and finals will be conducted at the Salem Civic Center in Salem, Virginia.
