Courtesy Bridgewater State Sports Information

BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- The NCAA Division III Tournament pairings have been announced and the Bridgewater State University men's basketball team will travel to Worcester, Massachusetts on Friday night (7:30) to take on the Engineers of WPI in an opening round contest.

Bridgewater State (19-9) will be making the programs third straight and sixth overall appearance in the national tournament.  The previous five appearances came in 1983, 1999, 2006, 2009 and 2010. 

Last year's version of the Bears dropped a first round decision at home to UMaine-Farmington, 64-63.  The 2008-2009 squad made it all the way to the Sweet Sixteen after an opening round win at the Tinsley Center over St. Joseph's College of Maine and a dramatic upset victory at Middlebury College in the second round.

The Bears earned the automatic qualifier to the NCAAs by winning the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) Tournament championship on Saturday with a 91-73 road victory over top-seeded Salem State University.  Bridgewater entered the tournament as the number three seed as they posted a 7-5 mark during the regular season in conference play.

The BSU men's basketball team is under the watchful eye of 19-year head coach, Joe Farroba.  The three-time (1998, 2009, 2010) MASCAC Coach of the Year sports a career-coaching mark of 272-231 (.541) including a conference regular season record of 138-90 (.605).  Farroba's 272 wins are by far the most in BSU men's basketball history as he is the only Bridgewater coach to reach the 200-win milestone.  Five of the Bears' six NCAA Tournament appearance have come during his tenure. 

On the court, Bridgewater State is led by All-MASCAC senior forwards Nicholas Motta (Fairhaven, Mass.) and Judah Jackson (Everett, Mass.) as well as senior guard Corey Connor (Guard, Providence, R.I.).  The trio has combined to score 3,749 points in their BSU careers with 3,382 of those coming in the last three seasons.

Motta heads into the NCAA Tournament with per game averages of 16.6 points, 5.2 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 2.6 steals.  He leads the MASCAC in steals and ranks second in scoring, third in three-point percentage (.380), sixth in assists, eighth in field goal percentage (.507) and ninth in free throw shooting (.723).  Motta has accumulated 1,421 points since arriving at BSU in 2007 as he is 11th all-time among the Bears' career scoring leaders.

Jackson, the MASCAC Tournament MVP, is averaging 15.1 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.3 steals per game this season.  He leads the conference in assists and ranks fifth in scoring.  Jackson is currently seventh all-time at Bridgewater State with 1,460 points over his four seasons with the Bears.

Connor, who ranks among the top three-point shooters in program history, is averaging 13.4 points a game while shooting an impressive 49% (87-178) from behind the arc and 91% (41-45) at the free throw line.  He currently leads the MASCAC in both three-point shooting percentage and made three-pointers, and ranks seventh in scoring.  Connor set the Bears' single-season record with his 87 trifectas and presently stands as the program's all-time (.432) and single-season (.489) leader in three-point shooting in terms of percentage.

WPI heads into the NCAA Tournament with an overall record of 22-5.  The Engineers were the runner up in the NEWMAC tournament championship as the top seed with a 63-52 loss to MIT in the title game. It is the sixth NCAA tournament appearance for WPI in the last seven years, and eighth overall.

Head Coach Chris Bartley's (10th Year) WPI squad won all but one conference game in the regular season and were ranked as high as tenth in the D3Hoops.com poll and ended the season No. 3 in the NCAA regional rankings. The Engineers are led by senior guard Jeff Robinson (Granby, CT) and junior center Matt Carr (Somersworth, NH). Robinson leads the team with 15.8 points per game and is 13th in the nation in free throw percentage with 89.4. Carr averages 12.2 points and 6.9 rebounds per game.

The Bridgewater State/WPI winner will advance to the second round and take on either Amherst College or Skidmore College on Saturday evening at 7 also at WPI.  Bridgewater and WPI have met once before in the NCAA Tournament with the Engineers coming away with a 79-62 first round victory in 2006.