McNeese men’s basketball to play in Emerald Coast Classic in November

LAKE CHARLES – The bracket for the 2021 Emerald Coast Men’s Basketball Classic were announced on Tuesday by event promoter Global Sports, an event that includes the McNeese Cowboys and first-year head coach John Aiken.

The eight-team event will be held Nov. 26-27 in a tournament format that will be held at Raider Arena on the campus of Northwest Florida State College.

McNeese will face St. Francis Brooklyn in a semifinal round game at 11 a.m. CT on Nov. 26 in one of the four-team brackets while Samford will go up against North Carolina A&T at 1:30. The two losers will play at 10 a.m. on Nov. 27 followed by the winners at 12:30.

In the other four-team bracket, LSU will go up against Penn State at 6 p.m. on Nov. 26 followed by Oregon State vs. Wake Forest at 8:30.

On campus first-round games will be played on Nov. 18 with LSU hosting McNeese, Penn State hosting St. Francis Brooklyn and Samford visiting Oregon State. Wake Forest will host North Carolina A&T on Nov. 20.

This will be the seventh Emerald Coast Classic. The tournament was not played in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic, an event the Cowboys were schedule to participate. Florida State won the title in 2019 while other champions include Cincinnati, TCU, Virginia, Iowa State and Ole Miss.

For more tournament information, visit www.emeraldcoastclassic.com.

The entire McNeese Cowboys basketball schedule will be released in the coming weeks.