ULM accepts postseason bid in CBI tournament

ULM's 19 year postseason basketball drought is over.

The Warhawks (21-12) accepted a bid to the College Basketball Invitational tournament on Sunday night.

ULM hosts Eastern Michigan (21-13) from the Mid American Conference (MAC) on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at Fant-Ewing Coliseum.

"I'm very happy for our players that they were rewarded for a good season," ULM men's basketball coach Keith Richard said. "That's exactly what a tournament like the CBI or CIT is for. They aren't as prestigious as the NCAA tournament or the NIT, but there are 351 Division I men's basketball programs and there were some good teams over the years that were being left out like they didn't have a good seeason. That's why these tournaments were created; for a school like us."

The CBI is a 16-team tournament that was created in 2008 and selects its participants from the pool of teams that don't make the NCAA tournament or NIT from both 'power-5' and mid-major conferences. The tournament is single elimination until the finals, which is a best two-out-of-three format.

Starting this year, the tournament has instituted a 30-second shot clock to assist the NCAA in research on scoring and pace of play in college basketball.

Eastern Michigan finished fourth in the MAC West and lost to Toledo in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament. The Eagles are coached by Rob Murphy, a former Syracuse assistant who like his former boss Jim Boeheim is a disciple of the 2-3 zone.

"It's like Syracuse in that the zone is a lot wider and it gets to the 3-point line as opposed to a packed-in zone where they dare you to shoot it from out there," Richard said. "That's something that's been really hit and miss for us all year in terms of people playing a zone and packing it in. It's kind of ironic that our one little Achilles' heel we're going to see it for 40 minutes but that's good. We need it."

Tickets are on sale at the ULM ticket office for $10.

ULM won 20 games for the first time since 2002 and the 11 time in school history in head coach Keith Richard's fifth year on the job at his alma mater.

The Warhawks last postseason appearance was in the 1996 NCAA tournament, where the then-NLU Indians lost 62-50 to Tim Duncan and Wake Forest.

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