The games: No. 12 Hanover (25-5) vs. No. 10 Trinity, Texas (24-6), 6 p.m. CT; No. 7 Puget Sound at No. 1 UW-Stevens Point, 8 p.m. CT; winners meet Saturday at 7 p.m. CT

Location: UW-Stevens Point, Stevens Point, Wis.

On the air: Hanover, UW-Stevens Point and possibly Puget Sound will have local broadcasts. Check NCAASports.com for links.

Puget Sound is one of the nation’s top offensive teams, ranking sixth in the country at 94.9 points per game. The Loggers attempt nearly 26 three-pointers per game and bring a 12-game winning streak into the weekend after winning a dramatic second round game over Buena Vista (Iowa) 85-82. Jeremy Cross, the team’s leading scorer at 16.6 points per game, sank a three-pointer with seven seconds left as the Loggers completed a comeback from a 10-point deficit in the final 12 minutes for the win. Cross is one of four returning starters from last year’s team and one of four players averaging double figures. Zack McVey scores 15.1 points per game and Chase Curtiss averages 14.6 points.

Puget Sound coach Eric Bridgeland on his team: “It’s been an adverse-filled year. A lot of adversity. Guys getting hurt. Guys changing positions. I never thought in a million years we’d be back here. With everything that was going on. The character and the strength and the perseverance of our guys. We really thought at Christmas time that, boy, if we could just find a way to keep in contention in our conference in the last week or two and have a chance to play for it at the end, we’d be happy. We took one at a time and were very fortunate. Had it locked up before the last weekend before we went to our conference rivals and played Lewis and Clark, which is always tough. I’m very, very proud of our team.”

On their up-tempo style of play: “It’s very tough for us to get quality height at our level. Tuition is $35,000 a year and our average freshman is a 3.7 (GPA)/1280 (SAT score), so what we can get, we can get great tweeners at our level. What we try to do is, I can’t teach defense anyway, I can’t guard the microphone if you asked me to, but if we just play angles and pressure, dictate. I think that’s our personality to dictate the flow of the game and so that’s what we try to do. Pressure, rotate, make it difficult on teams and have them play it our way and try to limit what they do best like every other team. Make it up-tempo, of course, we like that. Not only does it wear teams out with our depth, but also it creates easier scoring opportunities for us and that’s the way that we like to play.”

Hanover knocked off the Midwest Region’s top team, Illinois Wesleyan, for the second time this season to advance to the sectional. The Panthers won 83-76 and were led by Tommy Dennis and Bryan Chrin at 18 points apiece. Ben Lye leads the team for the season at 12.4 points per game. The Panthers rank ninth in the country in defense at 59.7 points per game. Hanover’s only previous sectional appearance was 2003 when it lost to Gustavus Adolphus. The Panthers lost earlier this year 74-62 to Ripon, which the Pointers defeated 75-53.

Hanover coach Mike Beitzel on his team: “We have a veteran team, we do play some young players, but we have some guys on the team that this is their third year in the NCAA tournament and this is our second sweet 16, so we’ve got a pretty good feeling of what we need to do to play well in this game and advance to the final four. We’re confident.”

Beitzel on the matchup with Trinity: “We definitely feel like this is Hoosiers. I’m Gene Hackman. We’re the short white guys playing against, in this case, the tall white guys. They’re huge. The most difficult thing about playing Trinity is scoring on them. It’s just hard to score on them around the basket. You can even get offensive rebounds and you can’t score because 52’s (Sean Devins) got probably a hundred blocked shots after his tournament games and 44 (Andy Bates) and 33 (Peter Murray) are also good shot blockers. I’d say they’re probably one of the best shot-blocking teams in the country, so I’d say scoring on them is the issue. Whether or not we can score enough points to win.”

Trinity is making its first sectional appearance and beat Pomona-Pitzer 65-53 in the second round. The Tigers jumped out to a 36-15 halftime lead and got 20 points from Peter Murray in the win. Sean Devins leads the team with 12.9 points per game and ranks fifth in the country with 90 blocks. Murray averages 12.1 points per game. The Tigers rank seventh in the country in defense at 59.3 points per game and fifth in field goal percentage defense at
37.1 percent. Trinity split with conference foe Southwestern, which the Pointers beat 65-42 in the season opener.

Trinity coach Pat Cunningham on coming to Stevens Point: “We’re excited to be here. Our kids were waking up to snow this morning and for some of them it’s the first time they’ve seen any accumulating snow, so it’s kind of fun.”

On his team’s size: “We are bigger than other teams. Whether or not we can take advantage of it is the key. Sean Devins and Peter Murray are both big scorers for us and if we can get the ball inside to them with some room to move, they can be very effective. I think on the other end is where we’ve been very successful with those guys. We make it difficult for teams to score because they’re very tall and very long, so hopefully that can help negate and slow down the other team. I think Peter and Sean, in particular, when they’re on the floor make it very difficult for teams to score.”

On the strength of the sectional: “I think that when you get to the 16, all of the sectionals are tough. I think when you look at the 16 teams in this sectional’s overall strength, I think it was a very difficult sectional. I think we were fortunate in that we did not have to play a ranked team because of our location. We got UTD who would bus to us and had barely a winning record. Now, they’re a good basketball team, but it wasn’t like playing Calvin, Wooster, Hanover, Illinois Wesleyan or those kinds of teams in the first two rounds. And the same thing with Pomona-Pitzer. Of course I think it is a very good sectional. I think this one and the Great Lakes Sectional are the two strongest from top to bottom. Now when you get to the 16, I think you’re pinching pennies. I think all four teams in all four regionals are very good basketball teams and can beat each other.”

UW-Stevens Point is attempting to become the third team to win back-to-back national titles. UW-Platteville won in 1998 and 1999 and North Park won three in a row from 1978-80.

The Pointers are shooting 55.4% from the field in their four postseason victories this year, which is remarkably similar to their performance in last year’s postseason when they shot 55.7 percent over their nine victories.

The Pointers are 16-0 at home this year and have a 20-game home winning streak. The total matches the school record for home wins, coming in 1983-84 when they were 16-1 and 1984-85 when they were 16-0. Current Milwaukee Bucks coach Terry Porter and St. Louis University coach Brad Soderberg played for those teams. The longest home win streak in school history is 25 games.

UW-Stevens Point is 12-3 all-time in NCAA tournament games, winning the national title last year and reaching the Elite Eight in 1997 and 2000. The Pointers’ three losses have all been to the eventual national runner-up, coming to Nebraska Wesleyan in 1997, UW-Eau Claire in 2000 and Gustavus Adolphus in 2003.

All three of the Pointers’ sectional final games have been decided by three-point shot attempts at the buzzer by the opponent. Nebraska Wesleyan in 1997 and UW-Eau Claire in 2000 both made threes at the horn to go to the final four, while Lawrence missed a three-point shot at the buzzer in overtime last year.

WIAC teams are 78-26 all-time in NCAA tournament play with eight of the losses coming to other WIAC teams. Including this year’s Pointers, of the 26 qualifiers since 1988, 19 have reached the Sweet 16.

The WIAC has had 10 teams reach the final four since 1983 and the conference has won seven national championships. UW-Platteville won national titles in 1991, 1995, 1998 and 1999 while finishing third in 1992. UW-Whitewater won titles in 1984 and 1989 after a fourth place finish in 1983. UW-Eau Claire was runner-up in 2000 and the Pointers won last year’s championship.

UW-Stevens Point coach Jack Bennett on playing without point guard Tamaris Relerford: “The team has responded all right. I feel very bad for Tamaris. This happened to him in his senior year of high school as well where he tore up his knee, so for him to go through this twice is very tough…I’m going through this as a coach, but I try to imagine it as if this were Nick. His mom and stepdad are so crushed by this, but they’ll be here tomorrow cheering on the rest of the team. Tamaris has been at every practice as well and helping out. He said it best. He said, ‘I’m going to be a coach and a cheerleader.’ Sometimes it gets overstated with win one for the Gipper, but I know our guys will have Tamaris in their minds and miss him.”

On breaking Puget Sound’s pressure: “They won’t change their basic philosophy. They play hard. I think if there’s a term that I bet you they use a zillion times a year, it’s aggressive. When things are slipping, I’m sure they talk about ‘We’ve got to be more aggressive.’ We do pass the ball well. As long as we make the extra pass, the early pass, we’ll be okay. They’re going to live and die by that aggressive full court defense.”

On the distractions this week: “Some of it is inevitable and part of it is that it just goes with the territory. There’s a lot of excitement. There’s a buzz around campus. You don’t run into people without them mentioning, ‘Gee, you think there will be more tickets. How soon do you think we’ll know?’ Part of what goes on with a home tournament is just, that’s the way it is. I want our players to enjoy this. I kind of equate this to, I remember in high school, homecomings in football. You always had a coach that said ‘Be part of it, but don’t get too wrapped up in it.’ I want our players to enjoy this. This doesn’t happen all that often and yet our main task is to get ready for the games and we will do that. In the long run, I think it is much better to stay with this kind of routine.”