Men's basketball team has familiar foe in semifinal

The Eastern Florida State College men's basketball team will face a familiar foe tonight at 7 p.m. EDT in No. 13 South Plains College.

One year ago the two teams met in the semifinals with the Titans picking up the 77-65 win to advance to the championship.

Fast forward a year and the two teams are once again meeting in the NJCAA National Championship Tournament semifinals Friday evening in Hutchinson, Kansas.

The Texans are in the semifinals for the third time in the past four seasons after holding off Connors State 80-75 on Thursday. South Plains has won six straight to get to this point including four wins against teams ranked inside the top 20 in the final NJCAA regular season poll, including wins over No. 4 Salt Lake and No. 7 Odessa College.

The No. 8 seed Titans are No. 6 in the final poll and edged No. 16 Barton Community College 82-80 and come into the contest as one of the best rebounding teams in the tournament, averaging 48 rebounds in the first two games. On offense, the Titans are averaging 83.5 points per game led by Freshman Jalen Warren who is averaging 17.5 points per game while sophomore Michael Nuga is averaging 16.5. Ruot Monyyong is coming off the bench to average 9.5 points and 11 rebounds.

The second seminal on Friday will be between Southern Idaho and Vincennes at 9 p.m. EDT. Southern Idaho knocked off second-seeded Northwest Florida State 107-93 on Thursday while Vincennes took down Florida Southwestern 76-68 to reach the semifinals.

The game can be seen on NJCAATV.org for $4.99 or you can listen online by going to www.bwradio.biz and clicking on listen mobile. You can also follow @efsctitans on Twitter for updates throughout the NJCAA National Tournament.