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BYU basketball to host Mercer Monday

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By Jeff Call, Deseret News

Published: Wednesday, March 20 2013 9:30 p.m. MDT

BYU advances in the NIT
Summary

PROVO — Mercer has already made a big 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 matchup at BYU.

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NIT First Round results, March 20

Iowa 68, Indiana State 52

Providence 75, Charlotte 66

Stony Brook 71, Massachusetts 58

Mercer 75, Tennessee 67

Baylor 112, Long Beach State 66

Southern Miss 78, Charleston Southern 71

Arizona State 83, Detroit 68

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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  • Y hoops: BYU advances in WNIT

  • Y hoops: postseason wins in past 4 seasons

Featured Comments

See all 37 comments »
TrueBlue
Orem, UT

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..

  • 9:23 a.m. March 21, 2013
  • Top comment
BlueCoug
Orem, UT

FHE at the Marriott Center Monday night!

Go Cougs!

  • 10:18 p.m. March 20, 2013
  • Top comment
Mountanman
Hayden, ID

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.

  • 7:35 a.m. March 21, 2013
  • Top comment
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About the Author
Jeff Call

Jeff Call

Jeff Call has been a sportswriter for the Deseret News since 1997. He is the BYU beat writer and has been covering Cougar sports since 1993, when he served as sports editor at the Daily Universe. Call has written several more ..

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