University of Massachusets Athletics
UMass To Face Mississippi State In NIT First Round
March 11, 2012 | Men's Basketball
March 11, 2012
AMHERST, Mass. - The Massachusetts basketball team has been selected to participate in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) and will face Mississippi State on Tuesday night in Starkville, Miss. at 7 p.m. Eastern time.
The game will be televised live on ESPN2.
The winner will face the winner of the Seton Hall-Stony Brook game on March 15-19.
At 22-11 overall, UMass finished tied for fifth in the Atlantic 10 regular season and won 20 games for the first time since 2008. UMass is 7-10 away from Amherst this season and has collected six total wins over NCAA and NIT Tournament teams.
MSU is 21-11 on the season and finished 8-8 in the Southeastern Conference. The Bulldogs are led by first team All-SEC performers Dee Bost (15.6 ppg, 5.3 apg) and Arnett Moultrie (15.8 ppg, 10.6 rpg).
This will mark the first ever meeting between the two programs, who both appeared in the 1996 NCAA Final Four.
For the Minutemen, this will be the 11th all-time appearance in the NIT. The Minutemen are 10-12 all-time in the tournament.
The last postseason appearance for UMass was the NIT in 2008. That year the Minutemen went 4-1 en route to a finals appearance at Madison Square Garden where they fell to Ohio State, 92-85.
UMass' first-ever postseason win was a 78-71 win over Missouri in 1973.
The NIT First Round will be on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 13 and 14. The Second Round will be held on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday, March 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. The Quarterfinal Round will be held March 20 and 21. Each of these rounds will be at campus sites.
The NIT Final Four will begin on Tuesday, March 27 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Championship Game will be held on Thursday, March 29.
For complete information and tournament brackets, visit www.NIT.org.
