Ithaca Picked To Host NCAA Men's Basketball Regional
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Ithaca men’s basketball team (20-6) has been selected for the NCAA Division III playoffs. The Bombers will host a four-team regional on Friday and Saturday, March 4 and 5. Ithaca will play Massachusetts Institute of Technology (19-8) in the semifinals on Friday with the winner to face the winner of the semifinal between Rochester (20-5) and Elms (20-7), which will also be played on Friday. The final will be played on Saturday at Ben Light Gymnasium.
Complete bracket
ITHACA vs. REGIONAL FIELD: The Bombers have never faced MIT or Elms. Rochester owns a 7-4 series record over the Bombers, though Ithaca is 3-1 against the Yellowjackets on its home floor.
ITHACA vs. 2011 NCAA PLAYOFF FIELD: Ithaca has faced four NCAA playoff teams this season, going 2-3. The Bombers defeated Franklin & Marshall, 107-97, and split with Empire 8 opponent, Hartwick. The Bombers lost to the Hawks in overtime, 100-96, on Jan. 22 and defeated them, 91-69, on Feb. 18. Ithaca dropped an 82-71 contest to Penn State-Behrend on Nov. 20 and lost to Oswego, 95-83, on Nov. 28.
ITHACA IN THE NCAA PLAYOFFS: The Bombers are making their ninth appearance in the NCAA playoffs, including their third under head coach Jim Mullins. Ithaca is 4-12 in NCAA playoff competition. Ithaca returns to the postseason for the second time in three years. The Bombers hosted DeSales in 2009 suffering a 77-71 setback to the Bulldogs.
THE 2011 PLAYOFFS: The Division III championship provides for a 61-team, single-elimination tournament that includes 42 winners of conferences whose champions earn automatic qualification (including NEWMAC champion MIT, UAA champion Rochester and NECC champion Elms), 18 teams that did not win their conference title but received at-large bids, including Ithaca, and one independent team. The first round of competition begins Thursday, with six teams playing. The winners of those three games will meet the three teams that received first-round byes on Saturday. The remaining 52 teams will play at 13 host institutions, with the first round to be held Friday and the second Saturday. Following this week’s regional round, four schools will host four-team sectionals, to be held March 11-12. The four sectional winners advance to the semifinals and final, March 18 and 19. All games except the semifinals and final will be played on the campuses of competing institutions. The final will be conducted at the Salem Civic Center in Salem, Va.
ITHACA LEADERS: The Bombers are led by Empire 8 Player of the Year, senior Phil Barera (Belmont/Belmont, Mass.). The center has tallied team-bests of 17.0 points and 8.6 rebounds per game, while adding 10 double-doubles. His 65.1 percent field-goal accuracy ranks him second in the nation. Ithaca recently placed four on the Empire 8 All-Conference squad as Barera and sophomore guard Sean Rossi (Sparta/Sparta, N.J.) earned first-team recognition and junior guard Jordan Marcus (Solomon Schechter/West Orange, N.J.) and senior guard Chris Cruz-Rivas (West Genesee/Syracuse) were honored on the second team. Leading the country with 9.7 assists per game, Rossi is one of five scoring in double figures for Ithaca. He averages 12.1 points per contest in a team-leading 35.9 minutes per game. Rossi rewrote his own season assist record with 253 this season for 474 on his career, ranking him third in Ithaca’s record books. Marcus and Cruz-Rivas each surpassed the 1,000-point threshold this season averaging 16.4 and 14.2 points per game, respectively. Marcus has drained the most single-season three pointers in Ithaca history with 88, while Cruz-Rivas mirrors Barera’s efforts on the boards, pulling down 8.4 per game. Sophomore forward Andrei Oztemel (Staples/Westport, Conn.) adds 87 three-pointers this season to rank second to Marcus in the record books, while scoring 13.2 points per game.