Fisher Set For Sweet 16 Matchup With Randolph-Macon
The St. John Fisher College men's basketball program (25-4) will travel to Ashland, Va. to face Randolph-Macon College (27-2), the nation's No. 1 ranked team, at 8 p.m. on Friday, in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division III Championship.
The Cardinals, ranked 20
th nationally, won two games over the weekend to advance to the round of 16. Fisher shot 13-of-17 from 3-point range on Friday in a 76-70 win over Worcester Polytechnic Institute and denied Amherst College its third straight trip to the Final Four, as the Cardinals defeated the Lord Jeffs, 87-70, on Saturday at Fisher's Manning & Napier Varsity Gym. For the weekend, Fisher shot 55.9 percent from the floor and an astounding 68.2 percent from 3-point land. The Cardinals are shooting 50.3 percent from the floor on the season, the third-best mark in the country.
"Those were two big wins for our program over the weekend," says 14
th-year head coach
Rob Kornaker. "To go on the road and play the nation's top-ranked team on its home court, in what I'm sure will be a hostile environment, is going to be a challenge, but I think our guys will be ready and we're excited about the opportunity."
Friday's contest will feature two of the top point guards in the country in
Chaz Lott and Randolph-Macon's
Sean Badger. Both players rank among the top distributors in the game, as Lott dishes out 5.9 assists per game, ranking 12th, while Badger accounts for 5.3, good for 23rd in the country.
Randolph-Macon features a balanced attack with just two scorers in double figures. Joe Hassell is the leading offensive threat at 12.6 points per game, while Chris Hamilton puts up 11.4. Both players are dangerous from beyond the arc, shooting 44 percent on the season. Fellow teammate Badger is a threat from 3-point land as well, shooting nearly 47 percent on the year.
The winner of the Fisher/Randolph-Macon game will play the winner of Dickinson/Virginia Wesleyan at 7 p.m. on Saturday, with the winner of that game advancing to the Division III Final Four.