CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-- Albany, Binghamton, Boston University and
Vermont, all which were selected to the pool of teams to participate in
the sixth-annual O’Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters series back in August,
received their opponent for the event on Monday evening. The Great
Danes, Bearcats and Terriers will all face foes from the Metro Atlantic
Athletic Conference, while Vermont will take on UNC-Wilmington from the
Colonial.
Albany will take on Canisius on Saturday, Feb. 23 at a time to be determined. The Great Danes have appeared on ESPNU in each of the last two BracketBusters, suffering
an 83-82 loss at Boise State last season after falling 70-67 at Virginia
Commonwealth in 2006. The Golden Griffins are 4-18 overall and 2-10 in the MAAC.
Binghamton will travel to the Bronx to take on Manhattan on
Saturday, Feb. 23 at a time to be announced. The Bearcats have won five
of their last six and 9-of-13 are tied for second in the America East
standings. The Jaspers are 8-14 overall and 2-10 in the MAAC.
Boston University will visit St. Peter's on Saturday, Feb. 23 at
2 p.m. The Terriers have won back-to-back road games to move to 4-5 in
league play. The Peacocks are 5-17 overall and 2-10 in the MAAC.
Vermont will travel to UNC-Wilmington on Saturday, Feb 23 at a
time to be determined. The Catamounts have won five of their last six
to move into a tie for second place in the conference standings. It is
the second time Vermont has participated in the event. The Catamounts traveled to Nevada for the event’s marquee game on
ESPN2 in 2005. The Golden Griffins are 4-18 overall and 2-10 in the MAAC. The Seawhawks have also won five of their last six games and are 14-9 overall and 7-4 in the CAA.
The sixth annual O’Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters event, a two-day men’s
college basketball extravaganza pitting potential NCAA Tournament hopefuls
against each other on Feb. 22-23, will feature 14 nationally televised games--on
either ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN360.com or ESPN Classic--selected from a pool of 100
teams.
BracketBusters, named because of the success of the teams in NCAA
Tournament play, will provide the 28 televised teams an opportunity to play
other top non-conference opponents three weeks prior to Selection Sunday. The 72
teams not selected for BracketBusters will compete against each other
over the same two days.
As part of the agreement, home teams will play a “return” game at the home
facility of their BracketBusters series opponent in November or December of the
following season. All four America East teams have been tabbed “road” teams for
the 2008 event, which will result in a home game versus their selected opponent
during the 2008-09 season.