Men's Basketball Receives At-Large Bid & #1 Seed for NCAA Division II Tournament East Regional
Ravens #1 seed in East Region for second-consecutive year
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Ellis Cooper logged a double-double of 22 points and 11 rebounds in a tough 69-60 loss to Bloomfield in the second round of last year's NCAA East Regional. |
RINDGE, N.H. (March 10, 2013) -- The Franklin Pierce University men's basketball team received an at-large bid to the 2013 NCAA Division II Tournament East Regional on Sunday night. The Ravens, who are coming off an appearance in this weekend's Northeast-10 Conference final, are the top seed in the regional, as it marks the second-consecutive year they will serve as the No. 1 seed in the East. The Ravens will take on eighth-seeded Bloomfield College in the first round on Saturday at the SNHU Fieldhouse in Manchester, N.H. Time is still to be announced for the game.
The rest of the first round matchups in the East Region include No. 2 seed Saint Anselm taking on the No. 7 seed Bridgeport, fourth-seeded Dominican (N.Y.) facing fifth-seeded New Haven, and third-seeded Assumption taking on sixth-seeded Southern New Hampshire. The winner of the Franklin Pierce-Bloomfield contest will face the winner of Dominican-New Haven in the second round on Sunday. The regional championship will be held on Tuesday, March 19. Saint Anselm will serve as the host school of the tournament despite it being held on the Southern New Hampshire University campus.
Franklin Pierce (21-8) earned the at-large bid following an impressive regular season and a run to the NE-10 finals. The Ravens tied for third place in the conference this year after going 16-6 in league play. Franklin Pierce is 6-0 this season when facing teams that were either nationally ranked or receiving honorable-mention votes for the NABC Division II Top-25 Poll at the time of tipoff. The Ravens have played five of the eight teams in the East Regional and are 5-4 in those contests so far this season.
Bloomfield qualified for the NCAA Tournament by defeating Philadelphia University, 68-64, in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference championship game on Saturday to claim the league's automatic bid. It was the Deacons' third conference title in as many seasons and it will be the school's fifth appearance in the national tournament in the last 11 years.
Franklin Pierce and Bloomfield will be meeting in the NCAA Tournament for the second-consecutive year as the Deacons downed the Ravens, 69-60, in the second round in 2012. Terry Hicks paced four double-figure scorers for Bloomfield as he pumped in 21 points on an eye-popping 7-of-8 shooting from beyond the arc. Ellis Cooper (Northampton, Mass.) kept the Ravens in the game with an impressive double-double of 22 points and 11 rebounds, while Eric Jean-Guillaume (Stamford, Conn.) also had a strong offensive game with 21 points. The win allowed the Deacons to reach the regional final two nights later where they fell to Stonehill.
For more information on Franklin Pierce men's basketball, please visit the team's page at athletics.franklinpierce.edu(.) To follow the program even further, please visit Franklin Pierce Athletics on YouTube (www.youtube.com/FranklinPierceSports), Twitter (www.twitter.com/FPUathletics) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/FranklinPierceRavens). Fans wishing to purchase Franklin Pierce men's basketball apparel can do so on the athletic department's online store at athletics.franklinpierce.edu/store(.)