After a dominant regular season and winning the Peach Belt Conference Championship last weekend, the fifth-ranked Augusta University men’s basketball team will host the NCAA Southeast Regional Tournament March 12-15 at the Christenberry Fieldhouse.
The Jaguars was announced as the one-seed for the regional tournament and will face eight-seeded Belmont Abbey in the first round on Saturday, March 12.
Augusta Coach Dip Metress is a former head coach and player at Belmont Abbey. He coached the Crusaders during 1996-2004 and had an overall coaching record of 134-93. Augusta will now meet the Crusaders for the first time since 2002, which was when Metress was the coach at Belmont Abbey.
Since Metress has been at AU, he has led the Jaguars to six PBC regular season titles and five PBC tournament championships. He has also led the Jaguars to NCAA Elite Eight three times and even to the National Title game in the 2007-2008 season, where they lost 87-76 to Winona State.
This season, the Jaguars are 28-3 overall and have a 17-0 record on their home floor. After defeating Flagler in the Peach Belt title game, it was also announced that AU men’s basketball team has moved up in the national ranking from 10th to fifth in the final Division II rankings.
Other teams in the Region tournament include two-seeded Queens, three-seeded Lincoln Memorial, four-seeded UNC Pembroke, five-seeded Flagler, six-seeded Georgia College and seven-seeded Columbus State.
Game One of the Southeast Regional tournament will be No. 6 Georgia College and No. 3 Lincoln Memorial on Saturday at noon. No. 7 Columbus State and No. 2 Queens will play in Game Two at 2:30 p.m. No. 8 Belmont Abbey and No. 1 Augusta tip off for Game Three at 5 p.m. Game Four will be No. 5 Flagler against No. 4 University of North Carolina Pembroke at 7:30 p.m.
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The winner of Game One will take on the winner of Game Two in the regional semifinals on Sunday, March 13, at 5 p.m. The of Game Three will take on the winner of Game Four in the other semifinal game on Sunday at 7:30 p.m.
The final teams remaining will play in the NCAA Regional Championship game on Tuesday, March 15, with a chance to move on to the Elite Eight in Evansville, Ind.
