The Misericordia University men's basketball team will open the 2017 MAC Freedom championships at Eastern, Wednesday at 7:30.

Admission is $6 for adults, $4 for seniors and $2 for students.  Children under the age of six are admitted free of charge.

Misericordia, 18-7 (9-5), is seeded third and is making its eighth consecutive MAC Freedom post-season appearance.  The Cougars won MAC Freedom titles in 2012 and 2015 and have finished second twice in nine years in the league. 

Eastern, 16-9 (11-3) is seeded second after finishing the regular season tied for first with Delaware Valley. 

Eastern is making its fourth MAC Freedom Tournament appearance and first since 2012.  The Eagles are 0-3 in their previous MAC Freedom post-season appearances, including a home loss to Misericordia in 2010.

Delaware Valley will host DeSales in the other semifinal with the winners advancing to Saturday's title game.

The Cougars dropped both regular season meetings to Eastern, including a 112-107 overtime thriller in St. David's early in the conference schedule.

Misericordia has three of the top 10 scorers in the league, including Jason Kenny, who led the league with 21.0 points per game.  Tony Harding was sixth with 14.8 ppg and Tre Fields was eighth with 13.9 ppg.  Griffin Sponaugle adds 11.5 ppg and is just three points away from 1,000 for his career.

Harding is MU's top rebounder and was sixth in the league with 7.0 rpg.

Harding was second in the league in field goal percentage at 51.8% while Kenny was third at 49.7%.  Kenny led the league in free throw shooting at 82.5% and was ranked among the top 11 in the league in assists along with Sponaugle, Alec Rodway and Fields.

Rodway, Sponaugle and Kenny were among the top sixth in assists to turnover ratio.

Eastern is led by Shaquan Turk who was second in the league with 18.5 ppg.  He was fifth in the league in field goal percentage and second in free throw percentage.

Eastern's Victor Pena was 10^th in the league with 13.2 ppg and second in rebounding with 9.3 rpg.

Misericordia led the MAC Freedom in scoring with 86.4 points per game while Eastern was third at 77.9.  The Cougars were second in field goal percentage (46.5%) while leading the league in FG% defense (40.1%).  Eastern was third in field goal percentage (44.8%) and fourth in FG% defense (42.6%).