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CONWAY, Ark. _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears will be playing in their first ASUN Tournament game on Tuesday night in their first year in the league. The added bonus is the Bears will be playing on their own Scottie Pippen Court.

UCA hosts Stetson at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Farris Center, one of four first-round games being played on campus sites. The Bears earned the No. 3 seed from the ASUN West Division and will take on the Hatters, No. 6 seed from the East, for the second time this season in Conway.

UCA beat Stetson 79-75 on Feb. 5 in the first meeting of the teams. Little did they know that they would be facing each other again less than a month later on the same floor, with much bigger stakes. The winner advances to Thursday's quarterfinal round against Jacksonville, the No. 2 seed from the East, on the road at the Dolphins' Swisher Gymnasium. The top two seeds in both divisions earned byes in the first round and the host roles in the second.

In the first game with Stetson, UCA junior Eddy Kayouloud scored 24 points, while graduate Jared Chatham had 18 points and 11 rebounds. UCA shot 54.8 percent from the field in the decisive second half and forced 16 turnovers for the game. For Stetson, which made 18 of 26 at the free throw line (UCA was 9 of 16), Stephan Swanson and Christiaan Jones scored 20 points each.

The Bears (10-19, 7-9), who wrapped up the third seed last week, lost its regular-season finale at Lipscomb on Saturday while resting freshman point guard Camren Hunter, who had started all 28 games to that point and leads the Bears in scoring. 

The Hatters (11-18, 5-11) also lost on Saturday, at home in overtime to North Florida, the team they were battling for the fifth seed. Since the loss at UCA, Stetson has gone 1-5, with the lone victory surprisingly coming over West Division top seed Jacksonville State.

UCA's last postseason appearance came in the 2019 Southland Conference Tournament, where the Bears beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi before losing to Southeastern Louisiana.

Stetson is 4-10 on the road this season, while the Bears are 7-4 at home on Scottie Pippen Court.

The Bears have four players averaging in double figures, led by Hunter at 14.5 points per game. Junior transfer Darious Hall, who returned to the lineup on Satuday, averages 12.8 points and a team-high 6.8 rebounds. Kayouloud averages 11.4 points and Chatham, a sixth-year Bear, is right behind at 11.0 points and 6.2 rebounds.

Hunter is a three-time ASUN Newcomer of the Week and averages a team-high 32.3 minutes per game. Chase Johnston, Stetson's leading scorer and three-point shooter, averages 15.3 points and shoots 40.7 percent from beyond the arc in 33.2 minutes a game.

The ASUN Championship will be played at campus sites of the highest seeded team all the way through the championship game on Tuesday, March 8.