CONWAY, Ark. _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears have drawn Louisiana Tech for a men’s basketball matchup in the 2012 Sears BracketBusters event on Saturday, Feb. 18.
The 10th annual Sears BracketBusters, a three-day men’s college basketball event pitting potential NCAA Championship hopefuls against each other Feb. 17-19, will feature 13 nationally televised games – on either ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU or ESPN3. The NCAA hopefuls will be selected from a pool of 142 teams from 16 conferences, the largest Sears BracketBusters pool in the event’s history, which includes two team that reached the 2011 Final Four in Houston.
As part of the agreement, all 13 of the Sears BracketBusters home teams in televised games, as well as the remaining 58 home squads, will play a return game at the home facility of their opponent in November or December of the 2013-14 season.
Sears BracketBusters, named because of the success of the teams in NCAA Championship play, will provide the 26 televised teams an opportunity to play other top non-conference opponents three weeks before Selection Sunday. The 116 teams not selected for Sears BracketBusters will compete against each other through the same three days.
The Bears and Bulldogs last met on the basketball court for the only time in 1941. UCA won that game 35-29. Louisiana Tech, a member of the Western Athletic Conference, stands 11-11 overall and 3-4 in conference play this season. UCA is 7-12 and 2-5 in the Southland Conference.
UCA will play an SLC game at Sam Houston State on Wednesday of that week, while Tech will host North Dakota on Thursday, Feb. 16. The Bears and Bulldogs will tip-off at 3:30 p.m. from Thomas Assembly Center in Ruston, La.
All 12 Southland Conference teams are participating in the annual bracket, with six schools hosting and six going on the road. The remainder of the SLC schedule has: Toledo at Sam Houston State; Lamar at George Mason; Southeast Missouri at McNeese State; Campbell at Northwestern State; UT Martin at Southeastern Louisiana; High Point at Stephen F. Austin; UTSA at Georgia State; Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at Central Michigan; Texas State at South Dakota; UT Arlington at Weber State, and IUPUI at Nicholls State.
For the seventh straight year, ESPNU will feature five Sears BracketBusters games, while ESPN or ESPN2 will television up to six and ESPN3 will carry two. The television matchups are selected by ESPN, while a Committee of Conference Commissioners determines the additional non-televised games.
The 142-team field will feature teams from 16 conferences: 12 each from Colonial Athletic Association, Mid-American Conference and Southland; 11 each from Ohio Valley Conference and Big South; 10 each from Horizon League, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, Missouri Valley and Summit League; nine each from America East, Big Sky and Big West; eight from the Western Athletic Association; four from the Southern Conference; three from the MEAC; and two from the West Coast Conference.
