Eastern Kentucky set to play Charlotte in CBI championship on Wednesday

At least one team from the Commonwealth is making a deep postseason run.

On Wednesday night, the eight-seeded Eastern Kentucky Colonels will contend for the 2023 College Basketball Invitational championship against the three-seeded Charlotte 49ers. EKU has already played three times over the last three days to reach the title game, winning the first two games in overtime (the second coming against No. 1 Indiana State) and the third in double overtime by a final score of 108-106.

The championship will tipoff at 5:00 p.m. EST on ESPN2.

Double overtime WIN‼️

We're going to the @CBITourney
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME!

Wednesday, 5 pm – ESPN2#MostExciting40MinutesInSports or more pic.twitter.com/TE3qMVFtzC

— EKUHoops (@EKUHoops) March 22, 2023

Eastern Kentucky, led by fifth-year head coach and Georgetown, KY native A.W. Hamilton, finished the regular season with a 19-12 record, including a 12-6 mark in the Atlantic Sun Conference. The Colonels started the year 5-6 before righting the ship in mid-December. EKU went 12-3 over its next 15 games but did trail off slightly near the end of the season, losing in the semifinals of the ASUN Conference Tournament.

There are five Kentuckians on the EKU roster, with two of the team’s three leading scorers hailing from the Bluegrass State. 6-foot-7 junior Michael Moreno (Scott County HS) and 6-foot-7 senior Isaiah Cozart (Madison Central HS) help power the Colonels with 11.1 points and 9.9 points per game, respectively.

Additionally, 6-foot-1 senior guard Cooper Robb (Scott County HS; started college career at Charlotte) is a full-time starter with per-game averages of 7.4 points and 4.1 rebounds. 6-foot-3 sophomore DaShawn Jackson (Frederick Douglass HS) and 5-foot-11 freshman Turner Buttry (Bowling Green HS) both average about nine minutes per game off the bench for Coach Hamilton.

After earning the No. 8 seed out of the 16-team field, EKU started off the CBI with a 91-75 win over No. 9 Cleveland State in overtime before knocking off top-seeded Indiana State in overtime once again 89-88. Cozart was the one who pushed the Colonels through, hitting the two go-ahead free throws with 20.1 seconds left. Devontae Blanton, EKU’s leading scorer on the season (17.4 PPG), popped off for a career-high 32 points.

A day later, Cozart was again the hero in the 108-106 double OT semifinals win over Southern Utah, dropping a career-high 31 points. His final two points came at the free-throw line with the game tied and just 1.1 seconds left in the second overtime. EKU shot over 50 percent from the floor and turned the ball over just nine times despite 50 minutes of action.

Charlotte, meanwhile, has taken a much easier path to the championship, beating double-digit seeds in all three games so far. The 49ers beat No. 14 Western Carolina on Saturday (65-56), No. 11 Milwaukee on Monday (76-65), then No. 10 Radford on Tuesday (63-56) to reach Wednesday’s finals.

Tune into ESPN2 later tonight to see if EKU can finish off its Cinderella run.