INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Trinity University will face Whitworth University in the first round of the 2022 NCAA Division III Men's Basketball Championship on Friday, March 4. NCAA Release
Trinity (22-5) and Whitworth (22-4) are part of a four-team pod (first and second rounds) to be played at University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas. Whitworth claimed its 14th Northwest Conference men's basketball tournament championship with a resounding 85-59 victory over Whitman College on Saturday. The Pirates are making their 15th appearance in that event.
In the other first-round matchup, American Southwest Conference Tournament champion Mary Hardin-Baylor (25-2) will take on Chapman University (22-4), an at-large selection from the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Friday's winners will play on Saturday, March 5 with a berth to the round of 16 on the line.
Despite dropping a 77-58 decision to St. Thomas in yesterday's Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference title game, the Tigers earned the automatic berth into the NCAA tournament as the league's highest seeded team entering the conference tournament who is eligible for the postseason play. This will be Trinity's 11th NCAA tournament appearance and first since 2014. Ironically, the last time Trinity played an NCAA tournament game it was against Whitworth, a first-round contest the Tigers dropped 75-73.
Sixteen sites will host four teams for first and second-round competition Friday-Saturday, March 4-5. Second-round winners will advance to one of eight third-round sectional sites Friday-Saturday, March 11-12. The national semifinals and the championship game will be March 18 and 19 at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum Arena in Fort Wayne, Indiana.