KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Eastern Oregon University women's and men's basketball teams have both qualified for their NAIA Div. 2 National Tournaments.
The Mountaineer women (23-8) will compete at the 21st annual event which begins March 7. EOU's opponent will be released at 4 p.m. PST. Eastern makes the 32-team national field for the sixth time in school history, and second time in the past three years after participating in 2010. The Mountaineers made the 2004 tournament, and then qualified three straight years from 2006 to 2008.
Eastern Oregon is joined by three other Cascade Collegiate Conference schools, the most ever qualified teams in the 20-year history of the CCC. The conference had three representatives in 1999 and 2009.
Corban (23-7) received the conference's first automatic berth as regular season champions. C of I (22-8) won the conference tournament and took the second automatic berth. EOU was the eighth at-large team.
On the men's side, the CCC was one of three conferences to land a quartet of qualifiers in the field. The Cascade Conference has qualified four teams to the national tournament for the fourth straight season and fifth out of the past six seasons. This year's qualifiers are identical to those in 2011.
Oregon Tech, Northwest, Warner Pacific and Eastern Oregon return to Point Lookout, Missouri, and Keeter Gymnasium for the 21st annual tournament. The Owls (29-4) received the CCC's first automatic berth from their regular season title. Co-conference regular season champion, NU makes the field after qualifying for the CCC tournament championship game. The Knights (23-7) received the second at-large berth and EOU was awarded the 10th and final at-large berth.
Eastern makes the national tournament for the fifth straight season and sixth all-time. The Mountaineers have a 5-4 record at the NAIA national tournament all-time. EOU will look to advance to the second round for the fifth consecutive time, a feat accomplished by only three other teams.
NeuLion is the NAIA's Digital Media Partner and official video-streaming company of 10 select NAIA National Championship events. The first 30 games from both tournaments will be available via live video stream for $29.95 and any single day can be purchased for $9.95. Also, one can purchase the all-tournament package of all four basketball tournaments for $49.95. For more information and to pre-register, click here.
The National Championship final on March 13 will be televised live nationally on CBS Sports Network with the men's game beginning at 6 p.m. CST and the women's game tipping off at 8 p.m. CST.
Both the EOU women and men will learn who their opponents are at 4 p.m. today.
