JOPLIN, Mo. — The Ozark Christian College men and women’s basketball teams will be hosting the NCCAA national tournament this week.

On the men’s side, they turned in a 21-10 overall record and a 12-2 conference record this season. They enter the national tournament as the six seed and will face the three seed Crown College in their first round matchup Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. The winner will move on to the semifinals Friday and play at 4:00 p.m.

The women’s team completed a solid season leading up to this week. Ozark finished with a 24-4 overall record and 13-0 conference record. They would also capture the Midwest Christian College Conference Tournament title as well as the ACCA National Tournament Championship. The women come into the NCCAA tournament with a full head of steam. They will be the three seed in the tournament and face Simmons Kentucky Thursday at 8:00 p.m. The winner of the game moves on to the semifinals and will play at 8:00 p.m. on Friday.

Both teams are feeling good heading into this big week.

Tyler Alarid mentioned, “I know this year we’ve got a great group of guys that can compete. We brought in a lot of new additions, but throughout the years they’ve shown countless times they can step up. If we can play our game, I feel like we can match up well first round. I know we got Crown. Watching some film, they’re a solid team. I know they made a run last year, but if we can play our game and shoot like we can shoot, I think we can be a dangerous team, so we’re feeling pretty good.”

Chris Lahm said, “We’ve got enough guys to cover up, we’ve got a difficult draw in Crown College. We hope we can come out Wednesday night and play well and knock down some shots down.”

Lydia Pipins says, “I think we feel good, we’ve had some ups and downs throughout this season coming up to the tournament this week, but I think overall we feel good as a team. It’s definitely nice because I feel like we play better when we don’t travel. So that’s definitely advantage for us and we’ll have out home crowd here too so that’s going to be another advantage for us too.”

Abbry Boggess voiced, “I think we feel pretty confident. I think when we pass the ball really well and just work together as a team. We’re a really good three point shooting team and if our shots are falling, we play solid defense then, we’re pretty set. The home crowd helps a lot, just the fans and the parents and just everybody that shows up. We have a pretty good crowd base and having the men’s and women’s team helps a lot just to bring the fans into Joplin.”