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<p>Up next for Misericordia will be the Cougars&#8217; toughest test yet.</p><p>The Freedom Conference champions will open the NCAA tournament with a true road game against a top-10 team as the Cougars take on Ramapo in the first round at 7:30 p.m. Friday.</p><p>The NCAA unveiled the 64-team Division III bracket on Monday afternoon, placing Misericordia in a four-team pod at Ramapo&#8217;s campus in Mahwah, N.J.</p><p>Play will begin at the site at 5:30 p.m. Friday with Amherst taking on Keene State. The two winners will play a second-round game at Ramapo on Saturday.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s exciting,&#8221; Misericordia athletic director Chuck Edkins said after the Cougars outlasted DeSales in Saturday&#8217;s conference finals. &#8220;They&#8217;ve got a great group of young men all the way through. There&#8217;s a lot of guys on that roster, and they all believe.&#8221;</p><p>To advance, the Cougars will have to do something no one else has this season &#8212; beat Ramapo on its home floor. The Roadrunners went 13-0 at the Bradley Center, including winning the NJAC championship there on a half-court buzzer-beater on Friday night.</p><p>Ramapo is 25-2 overall and was ranked No. 7 nationally in the most recent D3hoops top 25 poll, released a week ago.</p><p>It will be a matchup of two of the country&#8217;s better offenses as the Cougars are 24th at 86 points per game and the Roadrunners are right behind them in 25th at 85.6 per game.</p><p>This will be Misericordia&#8217;s third trip to the tournament in program history, all coming in the last six seasons.</p><p>The Cougars lost in their first two tries, falling to NYU in a true road game in 2012 and then to Wooster in a neutral-site matchup in Ohio in 2015.</p><p>Three seniors &#8212; Griffin Sponaugle, James Hawk and Jamie Egan &#8212; have meaningful NCAA tournament experience, having played 25-plus minutes vs. Wooster.</p><p>Elsewhere in the region, both the Scranton men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s teams made the tournament after each won their respective Landmark Conference titles.</p><p>The Lady Royals &#8212; led by former Misericordia men&#8217;s coach Trevor Woodruff &#8212; will host a four-team pod at the Long Center, opening with New England on Friday. The men will play Oswego State at Williams College.</p><p><strong>MU women play on</strong></p><p>Misericordia&#8217;s women&#8217;s squad also got good news on Monday. Though the Cougars lost a tough double-overtime game to DeSales in the Freedom Conference semifinals, they were selected to play in the ECAC tournament and will get to host a first-round game.</p><p>The ECAC will have one 15-team bracket this season on the women&#8217;s side. Misericordia will take on Rutgers-Camden at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Anderson Center.</p><p>A win there would send the Cougars to Pittsburgh for the weekend as top-seeded Carnegie Mellon hosts the final three rounds from Friday to Sunday. If the Cougars advance, they would play either Stevenson or Cabrini at 2 p.m. Friday.</p><p>&#8220;I really would like to see our women have a chance to get after it one more time,&#8221; Edkins said. &#8220;They deserve the opportunity (to play) for another championship.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Seniors Michael Brunson and Jamie Egan are headed back to the NCAA tournament as the Cougars travel to Ramapo for an opening-round game Friday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL022817MUTourney2.jpg</photo0><caption0>Seniors Michael Brunson and Jamie Egan are headed back to the NCAA tournament as the Cougars travel to Ramapo for an opening-round game Friday. </caption0><photoCredit0>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL022817MUTourney1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Misericordia players Owen Clark and James Hawk react to watching the NCAA tournament selection show at the Anderson Center on Monday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL022817MUTourney1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Misericordia players Owen Clark and James Hawk react to watching the NCAA tournament selection show at the Anderson Center on Monday. </caption1><photoCredit1>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Derek Levarse</p><p>dlevarse@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>UP NEXT</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>NCAA tournament</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>First round</strong></p><p>Misericordia at Ramapo</p><p>7:30 p.m., Friday</p><p>Mahwah, N.J.</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Derek Levarse at 570-991-6396 or on Twitter @TLdlevarse</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Misericordia basketball opens NCAA tournament at Ramapo on Friday