HELENA — Four Frontier Conference teams will be playing in the NAIA national basketball championships.
Both the men's and women's NAIA tournament brackets were released Thursday, and there are two Frontier Conference teams on each side.
The Montana Tech men earned a No. 3 seed and will host opening-round games in Butte with tipoff set for March 15.
The Orediggers will face No. 14-seeded Wayland Baptist (Texas) in the first round. The other game in the Mining City is No. 6-seeded Hope International (Calif.) versus No. 11 seed Lewis-Clark State (Idaho).
The Carroll men are also in the bracket, as the Fighting Saints are a No. 9 seed and will play eighth-seeded Cornerstone (Michigan) in the first round in Caldwell, Idaho, the home of the reigning champion College of Idaho, which is a No. 1 seed in this year's bracket. The Yotes play Jessup (Calif.) in the first round.
In the women’s bracket, Carroll and Providence both secured No. 2 seeds, and each will host first-round games. The Fighting Saints will play Embry-Riddle (Arizona) once again, a team Carroll defeated by 15 points in November. No. 7 seed Oregon Tech and No. 10 seed Jessup are also playing in Helena.
Providence will do battle versus the Eastern Oregon Mountaineers, who come into the tournament with an overall record of 21-7. Also in Great Falls are Reinhardt (Georgia) and Arizona Christian.
The winners from the two first-round games at each campus site will meet in the second round on March 16. The winner of those games will advance to the tournament's final site — Kansas City, Mo., for the men and Sioux City, Iowa, for the women.
