Opening round matchups for the 2012 Battle 4 Atlantis men’s basketball tournament were announced on Thursday and the Missouri Tigers will meet the Stanford Cardinal in the opening game on Nov. 22 at the Atlantis Resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas. The Tigers join Stanford, Louisville, Duke, Memphis, VCU, Minnesota and Northern Iowa in the Nov. 22-24 event. Missouri and Stanford share one half of the bracket with Louisville and Northern Iowa. The respective winners and losers of those two games will meet in the second round. The bottom half of the bracket features Duke vs. Minnesota and Memphis vs. VCU.
Missouri will face the defending National Invitation Tournament champions, Stanford, at Noon CT. That game will be televised live on AXS TV, the channel formerly known as HDNet. Duke vs. Minnesota will also be televised on AXS. The evening games will be televised on NBC Sports Channel (formerly Versus). Missouri is coming off a 30-5 record and a 2012 Big 12 Championship. The Tigers begin their first season of play in the Southeastern Conference in 2012-13 and will be led by all-league candidates Laurence Bowers, Michael Dixon and Phil Pressey.
Last season Stanford went 26-11 en route to that postseason NIT title. Johnny Dawkins’ squad will be led by guards Chasson Randle and Aaron Bright. The pair combined for 25.5 points and 5.7 assists per game last year.