MELBOURNE, Fla. – On Wednesday, the Florida Tech men's basketball team (13-15, 8-12 SSC) will square off with Sunshine State Conference regular season champion, No. 1 seed Barry (18-7, 14-6 SSC) in the first round of the 2018 SSC Men's Basketball Tournament. This is the eighth straight postseason appearance for the Panthers.

Florida Tech needed a little luck in order to the make league tournament this year. The Panthers sat one game back of Saint Leo for the eighth spot in the standings and needed a win over Nova Southeastern and a SLU loss to Rollins in order to clinch the No. 8 seed in the tournament.

Fortunately, both situations occurred and FIT faces Barry in the first round of the SSC Tournament for the second year in a row. Last season, the Bucs slipped past the Panthers 87-84 in Miami Shores to advance to the conference semifinals.

Florida Tech dominated No. 7 Barry on the road earlier this season and won by the score 96-83 on Jan. 6.  It was the Panthers' first victory over a Top-10 opponent since 2015 and ended a five-game losing streak to the Bucs. It was also Barry's first loss in SSC play this season.

Seniors led the way for FIT in January's win. Jordan Majors guided FIT with 26 points while Patrick Anderson and Sam Daniel finished with 23 points and 16 points, respectively. Richard Coil also had a great game for the Panthers, finishing with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Elvar Fridriksson tallied 24 points and nine assists for the Bucs.

Barry returned the favor in the teams' second meeting, taking down the Panthers, 95-90, at the Clemente Center on Feb. 14. Majors guided FIT with 32 points. Daniel had 27 points and Coil recorded another double-double on 11 points and 10 boards. Daniel Mortensen paced BU with 20 points and six rebounds.

Majors and Daniel currently rank first and second in the SSC in scoring at 22.5 and 22.2 points per game, respectively. Fridriksson paces the Bucs, and is fourth in the league, with 20.0 points a night, while Sawyer Glick is the team's second leading scorer at 14.8 per game.

Coil and Mortensen lead their respective teams and rank fourth and fifth in the SSC in rebounding at 9.1 and 7.0 rebounds per game, respectively. Fridriksson is the league's leader in assists at 7.3 per game, followed by Valur Valsson who is tied for second at 6.8 per game.

Tip-off between FIT and Barry is Wednesday, Feb. 28, at 7:30 p.m. at BU's Health & Sports Center in Miami Shores, Florida. Fans can access links to live coverage of the action at SunshineStateConference.TV or FloridaTechSports.com.