Murray State University Athletics
Racers' Bracket Buster game at Rice to be shown on regional television
2/16/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
As part of ESPN's Bracket Buster Saturday, the Murray State Racers will play the Rice Owls on Feb. 19 at 4 p.m. The game is to be televised nationally on ESPN Full Court, and locally on UPN The Beat and Comcast Sports South. Racer fans should check their local listings.
The Bracket Buster Saturday series is a concept developed by ESPN in conjunction with a group of conference commissioners prior to the 2002-03 basketball season. The 2005 event will be the third for ESPN. ESPN's commitment to the series continues to increase with the network adding another national cablecast with six games on ESPN or ESPN2, in addition to five more produced for ESPN Full Court and regional distribution on Saturday, Feb. 19.
The 2005 field of Bracket Buster teams was easily the toughest and deepest yet in the three years that the series has been played, and the telecast package will feature strong match-ups of teams that are contending for regular-season conference championships and for berths in the NCAA Tournament.
Eight of the 22 teams played in last year's NCAA tournament. Three games feature match-ups of tournament teams, with the top game pitting Nevada against Vermont. Also, Pacific hosts Texas-El Paso, and Western Michigan travels to Northern Iowa. The other two teams who appeared in the NCAA Tournament last year are Murray State and Southern Illinois, who visits Kent State.
In other games, Bowling Green hosts Arkansas Little-Rock, Buffalo takes on Fresno State, Drexel travels to Ball State, Illinois State plays Wisconsin-Green Bay, Wichita State meets Miami (Ohio) and Wisconsin-Milwaukee travels to Hawai'i.
