March 1, 2004

Tournament Bracket in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader

The regular season champion University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's basketball team will be the top seed for the 2004 Horizon League Men's Basketball Championship, which begins Tuesday at campus sites.

The Panthers (18-9, 13-3 Horizon), though, receive a bye into the semifinals and will not play until Saturday at 4:30 p.m. CST at a site to be determined.

UWM will face one of four teams - fourth-seeded Detroit, fifth-seeded Wright State, eighth-seeded Loyola or ninth-seeded Cleveland State. Saturday's game will be played at Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse, if the Bulldogs win a first round game on Tuesday. Otherwise, because of a conflict with the Milwaukee Wave at the U.S. Cellular Arena, second-seeded UIC would assume the host role for the middle rounds and the game would be played at the UIC Pavilion. If UWM advances to the championship game (March 9 - 8 p.m. CST) and Butler has already been eliminated from the tournament, that game would be played at the U.S. Cellular Arena.

First round games Tuesday find fourth-seeded Detroit hosting ninth-seeded Cleveland State, fifth-seeded Wright State hosting eighth-seeded Loyola and sixth-seeded Butler hosting seventh-seeded Youngstown State. The three winners advance to second round play Friday, along with third-seeded UW-Green Bay. UWM and UIC will then rejoin the action on Saturday.

Saturday's semifinals will air on Fox Sports North and other regional outlets thorughout the league. Next Tuesday's championship game is on ESPN.

The winner of the Horizon League Tournament receives an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.