The St. Thomas men’s basketball team will host Aurora (Ill.) University at 7 p.m. March 2 for its first NCAA Division III tournament game, announced Monday morning during the D-III men’s basketball tournament online selection show.
The Spartans (22-6) last played in the D-III tournament in 2010.
Center Tommy Hannon said Saturday’s game should be “pretty fun.”
“We don’t know much about (Aurora),” Hannon said. “I know five years ago we played them in the first round, but we’re going to watch some film on them and check out their stats. I know they have a pretty good record.”
The Spartans are a member of the Northern Athletics Conference. They won their conference title game 95-71 over Lakeland (Wis.) College Saturday.
St. Thomas is the only team from the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in the tournament. Hannon said he and his team feel fortunate to be able to host their first-round game and is looking forward to Saturday’s crowd.
“We like the matchup that we have in the first round and trying not to look too far ahead,” Hannon said. “Our coach tells us to only focus on the first game because that’s all that’s guaranteed, and everything else will take care of itself.”
This year’s NCAA D-III men’s basketball tournament will have a different look and feel.
Past tournaments covered 19 days and finished with the national semifinals and national championship games in Salem, Va.
The 2013 men’s tournament spreads over 41 days and still visits Salem, Va., but just for the Elite Eight and national semifinals. Atlanta will play host to this year’s D-III national championship at the Phillips Arena, home to the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks.
The change in the tournament’s schedule is a one-year trial by the NCAA to have its D-I, D-II and D-III men’s championships in the same city on the same weekend.
The championship for D-I is April 8 at the Georgia Dome, while the championships for D-II and D-III occur on April 7 at the Phillips Center.
Other twists to the bracket:
No neutral site games will be played in the first three rounds.
Two teams will receive a first-round bye.
Every game must field teams within 500 miles of each other or the visiting must travel by air.
The NCAA has said it will do whatever it takes to avoid teams having to fly in the early rounds.
Both Mary-Hardin Baylor (Texas) and Amherst (Mass.) both received first-round byes to start off the tournament, but Hannon said it will good for the Tommies to keep the ball rolling.
“A bye would’ve given us two weeks off before our next game, and we’re on a roll right now. We’ve won 10 games in a row. A bye could maybe stop our momentum, so we’re happy to keep playing,” Hannon said.
St. Thomas completed its 26-1 season Sunday by dismantling Augsburg 92-65 in the MIAC title game to receive the conference’s automatic berth to the tournament, but isn’t looking to stop there.
“Of course we want to get to the national championship,” Hannon said. “But we can’t do that just by talking about it, we have to win one game at a time. Our end goal, of course, is to be playing on April 7 in Atlanta.”
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