The quarterfinal round of the CIT comes to a close tonight when Oral Roberts travels to Weber State for a 9:00 PM Eastern game (live streaming at watchcollegeinsider.com). The winner of tonight’s game will play Saturday at Northern Iowa for the right to advance to the championship game.
On February 23 of this year, ESPN’s final BracketBusters event occurred. While 13 games were chosen for coverage on the ESPN networks, well over 30 additional games were played. As we noted back then, the most intriguing game that did not get ESPN coverage was Weber State, who at the time sat in second place in the Big Sky, traveling to Oral Roberts, who was in second place in the Southland. Tonight, the two teams will have a rematch, this time in Ogden, Utah. The first meeting between the two teams was won by Weber State, 70-66. Kyle Tresnak led the way for the Wildcats in that game, scoring 20 points.
Oral Roberts enters tonight’s game with a 20-14 record. They have a trio of all-conference players, led by Damen Bell-Holter. However, they are going up a team that, but for a 3 point loss to Montana in the Big Sky conference championship game, may have gone down as Weber State’s best team ever. Weber State currently sits at 28-6 overall on the season, a win total that is already both a school and Big Sky record for victories in a single season. In addition, senior Scott Bamforth set the school record during their win last round over Air Force with 247 career three-pointers. The record he broke was the one set the by Damian Lillard, now a rookie star for the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers. The Wildcats will attempt to capture their 29th victory tonight…and hope to then extend that to 30 and 31, which would capture this year’s CIT championship.