Bracket
BELTON, Texas – After playing their way into the field with two big road victories last week, the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor men's basketball team will open its quest for a third American Southwest Conference championship on Thursday. The Cru will be making its conference record 20
th appearance in the ASC Championship Tournament and faces LeTourneau University to open postseason play.
UMHB is the #3 seed from the West Division after going 15-10 overall and 7-9 in ASC play during the regular season. LeTourneau is the East Division #2 seed after posting a 20-5 overall record and a 13-3 mark in league play. The two teams will square off in the 5 pm Quarterfinal Game on Thursday in Alpine. The Cru fell to the YellowJackets 96-86 in Longview two weeks ago.
Logan Hicks had 25 points and nine assists for UMHB and
Sam Moore,
Kendal Little and
Devyn Brewton also all scored in double figures. Justin Moore and Nate West combined to score 62 points for LeTourneau in that game. The Cru is led by Moore's 21.4 points per game.
Casey Armour is averaging 15 points and 7.9 rebounds per game, but missed the last three contests with an injury. Hicks is also averaging in double figures at 14.7 points per game. UMHB advanced to the tournament despite losing both of its point guards in the first eight games of the season and having key players miss a combined 59 games on the year. West leads LeTourneau and the ASC in scoring at 27.4 points per game and is coming off a conference record 67 point outing last Saturday. Three other players also average double figure scoring and the YellowJackets have hit 261 three-pointers as a team on the season. The Cru has played in four ASC Championship games and won the conference in 2008 and 2010. LeTourneau is making its eighth ASC Tournament appearance and is 3-7 all-time in the event.
The UMHB-LeTourneau winner will advance to the Semifinals and will take on the winner of the Louisiana College/Sul Ross State Quarterfinal in a 7:30 pm tip-off on Friday. The other side of the bracket features East Texas Baptist and Concordia Texas facing off in one Quarterfinal with Hardin-Simmons and UT Dallas meeting in the other. Those two winners will play in a 5 pm Semifinal on Friday. The ASC Championship Game will be played at 6 pm on Saturday with the winner clinching the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III National Championships.
The 2020 ASC Men's Basketball Championship Tournament will be played at the Pete P. Gallego Center on the campus of Sul Ross State University in Alpine. Links to live coverage of all UMHB games will be available on the Athletics Department website at
www.cruathletics.com.
