PROVO — Mercer has already made a splash in its first National Invitation Tournament appearance.
The No. 7 seed Bears (24-11) knocked off No. 2 Tennessee, 75-67, in Knoxville, Tenn., Wednesday night to advance to a second-round NIT matchup at No. 3 BYU.
The Cougars and Mercer will meet Monday (7 p.m., MT) at the Marriott Center. The game will be broadcast on ESPN or ESPN2.
BYU (22-11) defeated No. 6 Washington Tuesday night at the Marriott Center in its first-round game.
Mercer, a school based in Macon, Ga., is the regular-season champions of the Atlantic Sun Conference. The Bears suffered a home loss to Florida Gulf Coast in the conference championship game, ending hopes of an NCAA tournament bid.
This season, the Bears defeated Florida State and Alabama — two teams that were also in the 32-team NIT field. Both of those wins came on the road.
BYU fell to Florida State, 88-70, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in November.
Against Tennessee, guard Travis Smith poured in a game-high 25 points for Mercer. Guard Langston Hall and forward Daniel Coursey added 16 and 15, respectively.
Going into this week's games, Mercer ranked No. 12 nationally in free-throw shooting (75.7 percent) and No. 35 in 3-pointers made (249). The Bears score 1.09 points per possession, which is No. 33 in the nation.
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CougFaninTX
"More non-power conference schools in post season play, and more non-power conference teams beating the "big six" conferences. Is it time to get rid of the term "power conference" in basketball?"
More..
FHE at the Marriott Center Monday night!
Go Cougs!
I watched part of the Mercer versus Tennessee game and Mercer is for real! Not saying BYU can not beat them but BYU will need to play like they did against UW to do it. Of course beating a Pac12 team is not that hard.