February 26, 2012
San Antonio – The Heartland Conference Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments are set, and the St. Mary’s Rattlers and Newman Jets have been set up to battle in both fields.
The St. Mary’s women’s basketball team (13-15, 8-4 in Heartland Conference) will enter next week’s tournament as the No. 4 seed and will play top-seeded Newman, which is hosting the tourney in Wichita, Kan. The teams will tip off at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the semifinals, with the championship game slated for 2 p.m. Saturday.
The last time these two teams met, the Lady Rattlers upset Newman 74-66 in overtime at St. Mary’s Bill Greehey Arena.
Arkansas-Fort Smith and Texas-Permian Basin will compete in the other women’s semifinals game, set for 5 p.m. Friday.
Meanwhile, the St. Mary’s men (17-8, 10-4 in Heartland Conference) will also face Newman in the semis, with the Jets earning the No. 2 seed over the third-seeded Rattlers due to tiebreakers after finishing the season with matching 10-4 league records. They will play at 5:30 p.m. Friday in Laredo, Texas, home of the top-seeded Texas A&M International Dustdevils.
Texas A&M International will face either Texas-Permian Basin or Arkansas-Fort Smith, who play each other in a play-in game for a right to enter the tournament at 5 p.m. Thursday. The championship game is slated for 4 p.m. Saturday in Laredo.
The winner of the tournaments will earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Division II South Central Regional tournament.