Feb. 4, 2008

Cape Girardeau, Mo. - - The Southeast Missouri State University Redhawks basketball team will play at Eastern Michigan in the O'Reilly ESPNU BracketBuster. The game on Saturday, Feb. 23, will tipoff at 3 p.m. (CST) at the Convocation Center on the Eastern Michigan campus.

The ESPNU BracketBusters concept, named because of the success of teams from these conferences in NCAA Tournament play over the past years, provides participating programs with an opportunity to play top non-conference opponents approximately three weeks prior to Selection Sunday. Each conference selected their participating teams prior to the season and the matchups for the event were determined by ESPN in conjunction with the conferences.

Southeast Missouri is 12-12 overall and 7-7 in the Ohio Valley Conference while Eastern Michigan is 7-13 overall and 3-5 in the Mid-American Conference. It will be the first meeting between the two teams. Eastern Michigan will play at Southeast next season.

This is the third year Southeast Missouri has participated in the BracketBuster with a record of 2-2. The Redhawks lost at UC-Riverside two years ago but beat UCR when they returned to the Show Me Center the following year. Louisiana Tech won at Southeast last season, but the Redhawks beat the Bulldogs earlier this season in the return game at Ruston, La.