The Little Rock Trojans men’s and women’s basketball teams are headed for national tournament play on Thursday. The men will face Purdue in the NCAA Tournament in Denver, while the women will take on Saint Louis in the Women’s NIT.

Men’s team

The Sun Belt-champion Little Rock men’s basketball team (29-4) has earned a No. 12 seed in the 2016 NCAA Tournament and will face No. 5 seed Purdue (26-8) on Thursday in Denver, as part of the Midwest Region.

Little Rock and Purdue are set for tipoff 3:20 p.m. CST Thursday on TBS. Little Rock won the Sun Belt Tournament and regular-season championships following a season that saw it set program records for wins (29), conference wins (17) and road wins (12).

Purdue finished the regular season with a 26-8 overall record, a Top 15 national ranking and advanced to the finals of the Big Ten Tournament where it fell to No. 2 seed Michigan State by a 66-62 final score. A.J. Hammons leads the Boilermakers in scoring at 14.9 ppg. Hammons, who was recently named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, pulls down 8.0 rebounds per game and has blocked 78 shots this season.

Like Little Rock, Purdue boasts one of the top defenses in the nation. The Boilermakers rank 26th nationally in defensive field goal percentage and 26th in scoring defense. The Trojans’ scoring defense ranks second nationally and their defensive field goal percentage sits ninth.

Little Rock’s 29 wins are tied for the most in a single season by a Sun Belt Conference program. The Trojans will have a chance to become the first team in league history to win 30 games in a season.

This is Little Rock’s fifth-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament and first since 2011. Little Rock is 1-4 all-time in NCAA Tournament games, with its lone win coming as a No. 14 seed against No. 3 seed Notre Dame in the First Round of the 1986 NCAA Tournament in Minneapolis.

Head coach Chris Beard will make his debut as a head coach in the NCAA Tournament Thursday. While serving as an assistant under Bobby Knight at Texas Tech, Beard went to four NCAA Tournaments, including the Red Raiders’ Sweet 16 run in 2005.

Last season, Beard led Angelo State to its first-ever NCAA Division II Sweet 16 appearance in his second year with the team.

The Trojans left for the NCAA Tournament in style Tuesday morning. An excited crowd of fans, the Little Rock band, dance team, and mascot were on site at the Jack Stephens Center to cheer members of the basketball team as they departed for the airport.

Thursday’s game will be broadcast on TBS. All games in the 2016 NCAA Tournament will be available via March Madness Live. MML will be available across 12 platforms, including desktop, Amazon Fire tablets, Amazon Fire TV, iPhone, iPad, Android handset, Android tablet, Windows handset, Windows desktop, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Roku players and Roku TV models. Additionally, MML will offer Google Cast and Airplay support.

A watch party will be held 3 p.m. Thursday in Donaghey Student Center Conference Rooms B and C with free food and drinks. Trojan fans can also catch the game during a watch party at the Reynolds Center for Business and Economic Development atrium.

Women’s team

The Little Rock women’s basketball team received an at-large bid for the Women’s NIT and will play at Saint Louis at 7 p.m. CST Thursday.

Little Rock will be making its fourth appearance in the WNIT and its first since 2013 when it played at Pacific. The Trojans are 0-3 lifetime in WNIT games after losing at Southern Miss in 2008 and at home against Murray State in 2009.

Little Rock has played Saint Louis just once, losing a contest on the Billikens’ home court in 2003. A win Thursday would pit the Trojans against the winner of Thursday’s game between Iowa and Ball State.

The Trojans are coming off a Sun Belt Tournament that saw them earn the No. 2 seed and make it to the championship game before losing to Troy. Little Rock began the year 5-11 before winning its next 15 games to finish the regular season and Sun Belt Tournament with a 20-12 overall record.

In the upper right photo, Little Rock Trojans men’s basketball team supporters send-off the team before they head to Denver for its NCAA Tournament game with the Purdue Boilermakers at the Jack Stephens Center on March 15.