Pairings for the ESPNU BracketBusters event were announced today with four Western Athletic Conference schools (Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, Nevada and Utah State) slotted for nationally-televised games. The University of Hawai`i men's basketball team is not part of the television schedule and will host Cal Poly in a non-conference matchup on Saturday, Feb. 20 with a time to be determined.

 

This is the fourth straight year that UH has been pitted against a team from the Big West Conference as part of the BracketBusters pool. The 'Bows won at Long Beach State in 2007, lost at UC Riverside in 2008 and fell to UC Irvine at home last season. UH is 3-4 all-time in the event and 1-2 at home.

 

Cal Poly is currently 8-12 overall and in third place in the Big West with a 5-3 mark. This will be just the second all-time meeting between the teams. UH defeated the Mustangs, 86-84, in Honolulu on Dec. 14, 1996.

 

Five of the nine Western Athletic Conference school's opponents for the ESPNU BracketBusters event were announced this morning. Besides UH-Cal Poly, the other four matchups are:

 

UC Santa Barbara at Fresno State

Long Beach State at Idaho

UC Davis at Boise State

San Jose State at Montana State

 

The other four WAC teams (Louisiana Tech, Nevada, New Mexico State and Utah State) were selected for the television package to be broadcast on the ESPN Family of Networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN360.com). Their pairings will be announced later this afternoon.

 

The eighth annual BracketBusters event, a two-day men's college basketball extravaganza pitting potential NCAA Tournament hopefuls against each other Feb. 19-20, will feature 11 nationally televised games-on either ESPN2 or ESPNU-selected from a pool of 98 teams. For the fifth straight year, ESPNU,

the 24-hour college sports network, will televise five BracketBusters games while ESPN2 will televise six contests. The 11 BracketBusters matchups will be announced today on ESPNU, the 24-hour college sports network, at 6:30 p.m. ET.

      

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.