CBI Tournament Central | CBI Bracket

The University of San Francisco Dons will meet the Rice Owls in a first round game of the 10th Annual College Basketball Invitational presented by FIVE FOUR Wednesday night in Houston, Texas. Tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m. at Tudor Fieldhouse. The game will be live-streamed on CUSA.tv.
 
USF (20-12, 10-8 WCC) will be making its 25th all-time postseason appearance and first since the 2013-14 season when the Dons earned a spot in the National Invitation Tournament. It will also be USF's second appearance in the CBI after making a showing in the 2012 event.
 
"This is a great honor for our players and everyone at USF," said head coach Kyle Smith. "We hope this is a first step for our program to become perennial postseason participants to add to the glorious history of USF Basketball."
 
The Dons are enjoying their first 20-win season since the 2013-14 campaign under Smith, who is in his first season on the Hilltop after a six-year stay at Columbia, where he guided the Lions to last year's CollegeInsider.com Tournament title. The Dons' 20 wins are the most by a first-year USF head coach since Pete Barry guided USF to a 24-7 finish in 1980-81.
 
Under the direction of third-year head coach Mike Rhoades, Rice (22-11, 11-7 Conference USA) compiled its highest win total since the 2003-04 season and have reached the 22-win plateau for the fifth time in school history. The Owls, who are averaging 81.5 points a game and rank 24th in the nation in scoring, are paced by sophomore guard Marcus Evans, who is averaging 19.1 points a game and junior swingman Egon Koulechov, who is scoring at an 18.2 per game clip. Evans and Koulechov combine to form the 10th-highest scoring duo in the country. Junior guard Marcus Jackson (12.4) is also averaging in double figures.
 
Both teams rely heavily on three-point shooting. USF has made a school record 292 three-pointers this season and rank 37th in the nation in three-pointers made per game (9.1). Rice has made 311-of-800 three-pointers this season and rank 24th nationally in three-pointers made per game (9.4) and is 27th in three-point percentage (.389).
 
USF and Rice met last season in San Francisco as part of the Roundball Showcase, with the Dons coming away with an 80-54 victory. The Dons and Owls also split a pair of games in a 10-day span during the 1981-82 season. After USF defeated Rice, 85-69 in the Golden Gate Invitational on Dec. 18, the Owls turned the tables and upset the 7th-ranked Dons, 78-66 on Dec. 28 at the Rainbow Classic in Honolulu.

The winner of Wednesday's USF-Rice game will advance to meet the winner of the Georgia Southern-Utah Valley game on Monday, March 20.
 
The CBI presented by FIVE FOUR is a single-elimination tournament up until the best-of-three Finals, with all games played at campus sites. After the first round games, the quarterfinal round will take place on Monday, March 20, followed by the semifinal round on Wednesday, March 22. Prior to the semifinals, the remaining teams will be re-bracketed. The Finals series is a best-of-three in which one team will host two of the three games. Those games will be played on March 27, March 29, and March 31.

Past CBI champions include Tulsa, Oregon State, VCU, Oregon, Pittsburgh, Santa Clara, Siena, Loyola Chicago, and Nevada. Teams from nearly every conference have participated in the event. Twenty-eight teams have used the CBI to springboard to the NCAA Tournament the following year, while another 17 have gone on to the NIT.

ESPN is again the official television home of the CBI presented by FIVE FOUR. ESPNU will televise each game of the best-of-three Championship Series. Roy Philpott and Corey Williams will serve as the broadcast team.

The College Basketball Invitational presented by FIVE FOUR is produced by the Gazelle Group of Princeton, N.J. The Gazelle Group is a sports marketing firm, specializing in event production and management, client representation, and sponsorship consulting. Gazelle produces numerous nationally-recognized events, such as the 2K Classic benefiting Wounded Warrior Project, Legends Classic, and the Gotham Classic. For more information on the Gazelle Group, please visit gazellegroup.com.

First Round Pairings
March 15
Loyola (Md.) at George Mason 
Hampton at Coastal Carolina
March 15
Eastern Washington at Wyoming
Green Bay at UMKC

March 15
Stony Brook at UIC
Toledo at George Washington
March 15
San Francisco at Rice
Utah Valley at Georgia Southern

Past College Basketball Invitational Champions
2008 -- Tulsa
2009 -- Oregon State
2010 -- VCU
2011 -- Oregon
2012 – Pittsburgh
2013 – Santa Clara
2014 – Siena
2015 – Loyola-Chicago
2016 -- Nevada