49ers Draw Aggies In BracketBuster
First Meeting Since March 2000

February 4, 2008

LONG BEACH -- Pairings for the 2008 O'Reilly's ESPNU BracketBusters event were announced on Monday and Long Beach State will be renewing an old rivalry. The 49ers will travel to Las Cruces, NM to face off against former Big West Conference member New Mexico State. The game will be played at NMSU's Pan American Center on Saturday, February 23 at 6 pm (Pacific Time). This will be the first meeting between the 49ers and the Aggies since March 10, 2000 when the Aggies defeated the 49ers 89-74 in overtime in the semifinals of the Big West Tournament in Reno, Nevada. The Aggies will return a regular season game to Long Beach State during the 2008-09 season.

The Aggies, under the direction of first year head coach Marvin Menzies, are 12-12 overall and 6-3 in the Western Athletic Conference. Last week they lost at Hawai'i, 94-71, but won at San Jose State 83-81. They host Idaho on February 6 and Boise State on February 9.

This is the third year that the 49ers have participated in the BracketBuster event. In 2006 the 49ers were sent to Riverdale, NY to take on Manhattan College. Long Beach won that contest 108-94. In 2007 the 49ers hosted the University of Hawai'i at the Walter Pyramid and fell 93-78. This is the sixth year for the BracketBuster event, but the third in which all Big West Conference teams will participate.

The Big West received two television games out of the event. A total of 14 games will be televised by either ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Classic or ESPN360.com. UC Santa Barbara's game at Utah State will be televised on Friday evening and the Cal State Northridge home tilt with Rider will be aired on Saturday. The announcement of television networks and game times will be announced on February 11.

Big West BracketBuster Games
UC Santa Barbara at Utah State (Friday evening)
Rider at Cal State Northridge
Long Beach State at New Mexico State
Portland State at Cal State Fullerton
UC Davis at Loyola-Maryland
Cal Poly at Fresno State
Idaho at UC Irvine
Hawai'i at UC Riverside
San Jose State at Pacific

ESPNU BracketBuster TV Games
UC Santa Barbara at Utah State (Friday)
Davidson at Winthrop (Friday)
Drake at Butler
Kent State at Saint Mary's
Virginia Commonwealth at Akron
Marist at Cleveland State
Siena at Boise State
Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Bradley
Rider at Cal State Northridge
Goerge Mason at Ohio
Creighton at Oral Roberts
Nevada at Southern Illinois
Miami (OH) at Valparaiso
Wright State at Illinois State (Sunday)

Full Schedule