LOUDONVILLE, NY – Saints. Devils. Siena Basketball will make its first appearance in The Big Dance in 16 years when the 16^th seeded Saints battle No. 1 overall seed Duke in an NCAA Tournament East Region First Round matchup Thursday at 2:50 p.m. at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina.
 
The game will be broadcast nationally on CBS with the lead announcing team of Ian Eagle, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill, and Tracy Wolfson on the call. The "Voice of the Saints" Emmanuel Berbari and former Saint Conner Fenlon '12 will have the radio call of the game locally in the Capital Region on JAMZ 96.3 FM, with pregame coverage beginning at 2:20 p.m. The Siena radio broadcast can also be streamed through the free Varsity Network app.
 
Siena (23-11) secured the program's eighth NCAA Tournament bid when the third-seeded Saints earned a seventh Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament Championship with a 64-54 victory over regular season champion Merrimack in the title game Tuesday night in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Siena is now primed for the program's first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2010. The Saints most recently were awarded the 2020 MAAC Tournament Championship and NCAA Automatic Qualifier following their quarterfinal win over Manhattan as the highest remaining seed when COVID canceled the remainder of the season.
 
No stranger to March Madness, Siena has won an NCAA Tournament game in four of its six previous appearances in The Big Dance (1989, 2002, 2008, 2009), including three of its past four trips. The Saints are a respectable 4-6 all-time in NCAA Tournament games, including three wins against top-eight seeds.
 
The No. 1 overall seed in the 68-team NCAA Tournament field, college basketball blue blood Duke (32-2) secured the Atlantic Coast Conference automatic bid with a 74-70 win over Virginia in the championship game last night in Charlotte. The five-time National Champion Blue Devils .750 NCAA Tournament win percentage is the best amongst all programs.
 
Siena and Duke have met just once previously with the fifth-ranked Blue Devils defeating the Saints 92-74 in the season-opening 2K Classic on Nov. 13, 2015 in Durham, North Carolina. Siena is a respectable 10-26 all-time against the 18 programs which currently comprise the ACC, highlighted by a victory over Stanford (then of the Pac-12) for the program's first NCAA Tournament win in its inaugural appearance in 1989. The Saints also won their most recent matchup against an ACC school, defeating Florida State 80-63 in the ESPN Events Invitational on Thanksgiving Day in 2022.