March 12, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS - The Xavier University men's basketball team will be making its 17th appearance in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament when the 14th-seeded Musketeers will take on the No. 3 seed Gonzaga University in the first round of the Oakland Regional on Thursday, March 16 at the Jon M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City.

Xavier, 21-10, earned the Atlantic 10 Conference's automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament after claiming the program's fourth A-10 Championship with a 62-61 win over Saint Joseph's on Saturday evening at U.S. Bank Arena. The Musketeers became just the 11th team in NCAA history to win four games in four days in their conference tournament and Xavier is now the only team to accomplish the feat twice.

The Musketeers will take on the 27-3 Bulldogs for the right to play the winner of the No. 6 Indiana/No. 11 San Diego State match-up on Saturday.

Xavier is 11-16 all-time in 16 NCAA Tournament appearances. XU made the 2004 NCAA "Elite Eight" in its last appearance. This marks the third time that Xavier has earned a No. 14 seed and the Musketeers own a 1-2 record all-time as a 14 seed.

Xavier and Gonzaga have met just once in each program's history as the two Jesuit universities played in the 1960-61 season with the Musketeers recording an 87-82 win over the Bulldogs at Schmidt Fieldhouse on Dec. 23, 1960.

The trip to Salt Lake City will mark XU's first-ever appearance in a western city for the NCAA Tournament as the Musketeers had only ventured as far as Dallas in 16 previous appearances.

Tickets for the first and second round games at the Huntsman Center are sold out. Please continue to check back at www.GOXAVIER.com regularly for updates as the Musketeers prepare for the first round game at the Huntsman Center.

-XU-

Xavier Musketeers Men's Basketball

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