SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The Southern Conference has announced the pairings for the 2016 Men’s Basketball Tournament, presented by General Shale.

The tournament will begin Friday (March 4) when Samford faces VMI. The Keydets have one final regular season game against Chattanooga Monday night (Feb. 29). A VMI win would give the Keydets the No. 8 seed and make Samford the ninth seed. If UTC tops VMI, the Keydets would drop to the No. 9 seed and Samford would claim the eighth spot. The Bulldogs and Keydets split their two regular season meetings. The Samford-VMI game will be followed by seventh-seeded Mercer taking on No. 10 seed The Citadel.

Chattanooga captured the No. 1 overall seed and earned a bye to Saturday’s quarterfinals. The Mocs, who finish the regular season Monday night at VMI, will play the winner of the Samford-VMI contest. The second quarterfinal is between No. 4 seeded Wofford and No. 5 Western Carolina. Those two teams split during the regular season, but it was Western Carolina that earned a 53-48 win over the Terriers on Thursday (Feb. 25).

ETSU (2), Furman (3) and UNCG (6) also earned byes into the quarterfinals. The Buccaneers will play Saturday at 6:00 p.m. against either Mercer or The Citadel. Furman will face UNCG at 8:30 p.m. in the final quarterfinal of the day. UNCG earned the final bye in the tournament after claiming a 69-65 win over Mercer this afternoon.

Sunday’s first semifinal is set for 5:00 p.m. with the second game scheduled to tip at approximately 7:30 p.m.

Friday’s opening round, Saturday’s quarterfinals and Sunday’s semifinals will be available on ESPN3. Monday’s championship game will tip off at 9:00 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN2.

2016 Southern Conference Tournament Schedule

Friday, March 4

Game 1 - (8/9) Samford vs. (8/9) VMI, 5:00 p.m.

Game 2 - (7) Mercer vs. (10) The Citadel, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, March 5

(1) Chattanooga vs. Game 1 winner, 12:00 p.m.

(4) Wofford vs. (5) Western Carolina, 2:30 p.m.

(2) ETSU vs. Game 2 winner, 6:00 p.m.

(3) Furman vs. (6) UNCG, 8:30 p.m.

Sunday, March 6

Semifinal 1 – 5:00 p.m.

Semifinal 2 – 7:30 p.m.

Monday, March 7

Championship Game – 9:00 p.m.