For the third-straight season, the University of Akron men’s basketball team will compete in the postseason as the Zips accepted a bid to participated in the 16-team College Basketball Invitational late on Sunday night. Akron (24-10) will play host to Green Bay (21-12) on Wednesday at Rhodes Arena at 7 p.m. ET. For ticket information, please call 1-888-99-AKRON.
Akron, which is enjoying its fifth-straight 20-win season, suffered an 81-75 overtime loss to Ohio in Saturday’s MAC Tournament championship game. Green Bay fell 62-53 to Detroit in the quarterfinal round of the Horizon League Tournament on March 5, and is participating in the CBI for the second-consecutive year. The Phoenix are 4-3 all-time versus the Zips, but the teams have not met since 1992 when the two schools were members of the Mid-Continent Conference.
Sunday’s announcement marks the first time in its Division I era (dating to the 1980-81 season) that Akron has appeared in a postseason tournament in three-straight seasons. The Zips competed in the 2008 National Invitation Tournament and the 2009 NCAA Tournament. This is also the fourth time in five seasons that UA has participated in the postseason, also being in the 2006 NIT field.
The CBI, in its third year of existence, features eight first-round games on Tuesday (March 16) and Wednesday (March 17). All quarterfinal contests will be played on Monday, March 22, with the semifinals to follow two days later. The final two teams will play a best-of-three championship series, with games on March 29 and 31 and April 2. Prior to the semifinals, the remaining teams will be re-seeded and the higher-seeded team will host two of the three championship series games.
For ticket information, please call 1-888-99-AKRON.