Queens to host NCAA Division II Southeast regional
Queens University of Charlotte will have home-court advantage in its effort to return to the NCAA Division II men’s basketball Elite Eight.
The Royals are the highest-ranked team in the NCAA’s Southeast Region and will host the regional tournament that begins Saturday. The eight-team field also includes Lenoir-Rhyne and Catawba.
Queens (28-4) will open Southeast Region play at 5:30 p.m. Saturday against eighth seed Emmanuel (25-9), from Franklin Springs, Ga. Emmanuel won the Conference Carolinas regular-season and tournament titles.
Queens hosted the Southeast Region last year and won the event, reaching the national semifinals before being eliminated. This season, the Royals were regular-season champions of the South Atlantic Conference but lost to Lenoir-Rhyne in the SAC tournament semifinals Saturday. Catawba then defeated Lenoir-Rhyne on Sunday for the tournament title.
Other quarterfinal games Saturday are No. 3 USC-Aiken (26-5) vs. No. 6 Lenoir-Rhyne (21-10) at noon; No. 2 Augusta (26-5) vs. No. 7 Francis Marion (21-8) at 2:30 p.m.; and No. 4 Catawba (24-7) vs. No. 5 UNC Pembroke (21-9) at 8 p.m.
The winners of Saturday’s noon and 2:30 games will square off at 5 p.m. Sunday in the semifinals. The second semifinal, at 7:30, will pit the Wingate-Emmanuel winner against the Catawba-UNC Pembroke winner.
The finals will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Wingate women named to field: Wingate has been named to the NCAA Division II women’s tournament field. The Bulldogs, who finished second in the SAC’s regular season and were tournament runners-up, are seeded third in the eight-team Southeast Regional.
Top seed and host for the event is Anderson (S.C.), the SAC regular-season and tournament champion. Friday’s quarterfinal schedule: No. 3 Wingate vs. No. 6 Clayton (Ga.) State, noon; No. 2 North Georgia vs. No. 7 Emmanuel, 2:30 p.m.; No. 1 Anderson vs. No. 8 Barton, 5 p.m.; and No. 4 Carson-Newman vs. No. 5 Lander, 7:30 p.m.
Steve Lyttle on Twitter: @slyttle
This story was originally published March 12, 2019 at 6:58 AM.