KATY, Texas _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears will play in the Southland Conference Men's Basketball Tournament for the second time on Wednesday, against the same team they faced in their first appearance back in 2013.
    
    The Bears, after a late Saturday night correction in the SLC tiebreaking system, emerged from a five-way tie for eighth in the final SLC standings to earn the eighth and final berth in the tournament. No. 8 UCA will face No. 5 Sam Houston State at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Merrell Center.

    The Bears, after Saturday's road loss at Northwestern State, ended up tied for eighth with the Demons, Nicholls State, Abilene Christian and Incarnate Word, the latter two of which are not eligible for postseason play during their final year of Division I transition. The tiebreaker system sent out on Friday by the league office had Nicholls winning the tiebreaker with UCA for the final spot. A corrected tiebreaker released late Saturday night finally officially put the Bears in the field.

    "It's an opportunity for us to play again, and we're looking forward to that,' said UCA head coach Russ Pennell. "I think I found out more about our guys, in the way this came down than anything else. And what I found is, they've been putting way, way too much pressure on themselves to try to get to this tournament.

    "I don't talk about that a lot with them. I talk about winning the next game, Yes, that's our ultimate goal, but after visiting with them and seeing their faces when they got the news they were still playing, it was almost a relief. Almost like, oh wow, we did accomplish what we set out to do

    "And I will tell you this, our ultimate goal this year, we accomplished, which was to get to Katy. And I've had some people say, 'man, you  kind of backed in.' We didn't back into anything. We earned it. I wish we had won more games, but no one handed us anything. We earned it. And I want out guys to understand that.  Did we win as many games as I wanted to? Absolutely not. That's not acceptable.

    "But here's the deal, we're all 0-0 going into this tournament. We win four games, we're probably playing North Carolina or Kansas in the first round. And man, I would love that opportunity.' 

    The winner between UCA (8-23, 7-11)  and SHSU (19-12, 10-8) will play again at 5 Wednesday against No. 4 Houston Baptist. That winner will meet No. 1 seed New Orleans in the semifinals on Friday. All early-round games are on ESPN3, with Saturday's 8:30 p.m. championship game set for ESPN2.

    "Sam is a good team,' said Pennell. "And I think, on a neutral court, with all these teams as even as they are, this Southland Conference Tournament is going to be crazy. We're in March Madness, and that's all that matters. Every game is a do or die for teams like us throughout the country. And we're excited about that.'

    UCA won the only meeting between the teams this season, taking a 67-65 victory over the conference's preseason favorite in the SLC opener back on Dec. 31 at the Farris Center. Freshman Aaron Weidenaar made three free throws with 1.5 seconds left for the final victory margin. Junior guard Jordan Howard, the career and single-season leader in three-pointers at UCA, led the Bears with 29 points, hitting 5 of 8 from three-point range.
    
    Neither team shot well from the field, with the Bears hitting just 30.5 percent overall and the Bearkats hitting 30.4 percent. UCA also overcame 22 turnovers, in part, by hitting 25 of 29 (86.2 percent) from the free-throw line. The teams had a combined 33 offensive rebounds and 94 total. The Bearkats had three players in double figures, all off the bench as they outscored UCA 46-9 in bench points.

    The Bears won three of their first four SLC games, beginning with the SHSU game, then lost five straight games in midseason before winning four consecutive from Feb. 2-11. UCA closed the regular season with a five-game losing streak. 

    The Bearkats, picked first in the preseason polls by both the coaches and sports information directors, lost their first two conference games to Houston Baptist and UCA before reeling off a stretch of eight straight wins to sit atop the standings on Feb. 2. Since they, however, SHSU has gone 2-6, including last Saturday's regular-season finale, a 64-56 loss at Stephen F. Austin.

    New Orleans is the top seeded team, followed by No. 2 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and No. 3 Stephen F. Austin. 

LINK TO SLC TOURNAMENT