NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. Monroe College will send both of its basketball teams to the National Junior College Athletic Association's national tournaments.
The mens and womens teams will leave Sunday and play their first games on Tuesday.
The men are the No. 3 seed and will face seventh-seeded Indian Hills (IA) at 1 p.m. EDT in Hutchinson, Kansas in the first round of the NJCAA Division I Mens Basketball Tournament. The women, who are the defending national champions, are the No. 9 seed and will square off with No. 8 Prairie State (IL) at 4 p.m. EDT in the NJCAA Division II Womens Basketball Tournament.
There are 850 NJCAA basketball teams, but only six, including Monroe, have both their mens and womens teams in the national tournaments. Monroe is the only team to do so in consecutive seasons, let alone the three straight seasons in which they have done so.
The men will play in their fifth Division I National Tournament. They placed fifth in 2003, eighth in 2006, seventh in 2010 and third in 2011. The Mustangs were national finalists in the Division III Tournament in 1998.
The women will participate in their ninth consecutive National Tournament and their third in Division II. They won the national championship last year and did so twice at the Division III level.
From a report by Monroe College Athletics/Gary Axelbank
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