Sunday, March 14, 2004

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Mar. 14, 2004) -- The East Tennessee State men's basketball team is headed to Columbus, Ohio as a No. 13 seed where it will face No. 4 Cincinnati this Friday, Mar. 19 in the opening round of the 2004 NCAA Tournament. Game time is still to be determined. "Ideally, if we had drawn it up we'd have liked to play in Raleigh because of our fans, but Columbus is still not as far away as some of the other sites," said ETSU head coach Murry Bartow. "We hope our experience of playing in the tournament last year will help us this year, but right now our coaching staff has to get to work preparing for Cincinnati." ETSU (27-5) earned an automatic berth to the "Big Dance" by winning its second straight Southern Conference Tournament Championship back on Mar. 6, while the Bearcats (24-6), who are currently ranked No. 12 in the ESPN/USA Today poll, won its fourth Conference USA tournament championship by defeating DePaul on Mar. 13. More information to follow ...