Pairings for the ninth annual ESPNU BracketBusters – a three-day men’s basketball extravaganza pitting NCAA Tournament hopefuls against one another Feb. 18-20 – were announced today.  Long Beach State will host Montana of the Big Sky Conference in one of 11 televised matchups on Saturday, Feb. 19 at 8:00 p.m. (PST) on ESPN2.
 
ESPNU, the 24-hour college sports network, will televise five BracketBusters games and ESPN2 five more.  Either ESPN or ESPN2 will televise an 11th game on Sunday, Feb. 20.
 
The nationally televised games were selected from a pool of 114 teams, the largest BracketBusters pool in the event’s history.

Long Beach State is 3-2 all-time against Montana, but the two schools have not met since the 1996-97 season.  The 49ers are appearing in a televised BracketBusters game for the second time in three years.  They hosted Green Bay in 2009 on ESPNU.

BracketBusters Televised Pairings • All Times Eastern
Friday, February 18
Virginia Commonwealth at Wichita State • 7:00 p.m. • ESPN2
Kent State at Drexel • 9:00 p.m. • ESPNU

Saturday, February 19
Hofstra at Wright State • 11:00 a.m. • ESPNU          
Austin Peay at Fairfield • 1:00 p.m. • ESPNU         
Iona at Liberty • 3:00 p.m. • ESPNU               
Missouri State at Valparaiso • 5:00 p.m. • ESPN2
Vermont at College of Charleston • 5:00 p.m. • ESPNU
George Mason at Northern Iowa • 7:00 p.m. • ESPN2 
No. 21 Utah State at Saint Mary’s • 9:00 p.m. • ESPN2
Montana at Long Beach State • 11:00 p.m. • ESPN2   

Sunday, February 20
Cleveland State at Old Dominion • 1:00 p.m. • ESPN or ESPN2

The other eight Big West teams not selected to compete in a televised BracketBusters game will play non-conference opponents on Saturday, Feb. 19.  Those matchups are as follows:

Non-Televised Big West Home Games       
Northern Arizona at Cal Poly       
Hawai’i at UC Davis       
Boise State at UC Santa Barbara       

Non-Televised Big West Away Games
Cal State Fullerton at Idaho State
Cal State Northridge at Eastern Washington
UC Irvine at Nevada    
UC Riverside at Fresno State  
Pacific at Oral Roberts

The BracketBusters concept, named because of the success of teams from these conferences in NCAA Tournament play through the years, provides participating programs with an opportunity to play top non-conference opponents about three weeks before Selection Sunday.  Each conference selected its participating teams before the season, and the matchups for the event were determined by ESPN in conjunction with the conferences.