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NCAA Tournament Field
 
BETHANY, Okla. — For the first time in school history Southern Nazarene will be dancing at the NCAA Men's Basketball Central Region Championship. The Crimson Storm picked up the automatic bid by winning the Great American Conference Championship and will take on St. Cloud State at noon Saturday in Maryville, Missouri.
 
Northwest Missouri State picked up the top seed and will host the regional Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday inside Bearcat Arena. No. 10 Southern Nazarene earned the 3-seed while St. Cloud is the 6-seed. The Crimson Storm earned the only bid out of the Great American Conference while St. Cloud State is one of four out of the NSIC. No. 7 Northwest Missouri State is one of three from the MIAA.
 
The Crimson Storm are having the best year in school history to date and already have a GAC record 27 wins. They have won six straight after losing their only conference game of the year on a buzzer-beater at Northwestern Oklahoma State. SNU touts GAC Player of the Year and Tournament MVP Jhonathan Dunn who is averaging 18.9 points and 5.0 rebounds per game. Micah Speight and Noah Starkey also were named GAC All-Tournament along with Dunn and earned All-GAC for the year as well. Speight was the only other unanimous First Team selection alongside Dunn while Starkey was named Defensive Player of the year. Speight averaged 16.5 points, 4.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists per contest. Starkey averaged 13.2 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game.
 
St. Cloud State (23-8) earned an at-large bid after reaching the NSIC semifinals and finishing second in the North Division.
 
SNU opens the quarterfinals as the first game of four. No. 9 Northern State (2-seed) takes on Washburn (7-seed) at 2:15 p.m. in the second game of the first session. The winner of that game will play the winner of SNU's contest Sunday at 5 p.m. Northern State won the NSIC regular season and tournament titles while Washburn reached the MIAA Championship game and finished third in the MIAA regular season.
 
Northwest Missouri State (1-seed) will play Minnesota State (8-seed) in the first game of the second session at 6 p.m. The Bearcats won the MIAA Tournament and regular season title while the Mavericks reached the NSIC semifinals and took second in the South Division. The final game of the night features Southwest Minnesota State (4-seed) and Missouri Southern State (5-seed). SMSU reached the NSIC Championship game and won the South Division. MSSU finished second in MIAA in the regular season and reached the semifinals of the MIAA Tournament.
 
The winners of the night session games will play Sunday at 7:30 p.m. and the Championship is set for Tuesday at 7 p.m.