On Thursday night, February 23, the John Carroll men's basketball team will embark on their quest for their first OAC tournament title since the 2008-2009 campaign when they host the fifth seeded Wilmington College Quakers for a 7:30 p.m. tip-off at the Tony DeCarlo Varsity Center. 

All tournament games staged at the DeCarlo Varsity Center will be accesible through live stats, live audio and live video.

Following a heart-pumping, last second victory at Marietta last Saturday, the regular season OAC champion Blue Streaks have clinched home-court advantage at the DeCarlo Center throughout the entire OAC tournament, a place where the Blue Streaks have gone 43-7 in the last four seasons, including 9-0 this year.

The Blue & Gold hope to use that in their favor come Thursday when they look to get back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since the 2009-2010 season. 

Wilmington, like John Carroll, is coming off of a big win of their own when they knocked off the fourth-seeded Yellow Jackets of Baldwin-Wallace in the OAC quarterfinals Tuesday night.  Wilmington's Antonio Bowman led the way with 23 points en route to the Quakers' 76-64 upset victory at Baldwin-Wallace. 

The winner of this semi-final matchup will face off with the winner of the sixth seeded Ohio Northern/two seeded Capital game in the OAC tournament title game Saturday night to decide who will represent the conference in March's NCAA Division III basketball tournament.  The home team will be granted to whichever squad has the highest seed. 

If John Carroll were to defeat Wilmington, they would host either Capital or Ohio Northern Saturday night at 7:30 p.m.

In the regular season, John Carroll swept Wilmington in their two meetings by scores of 82-64 in Wilmington on Jan. 7, and 84-82 (OT) on Feb. 11 at the DeCarlo Center. 

In the later meeting in University Heights the Quakers led by 14 with a little under eleven to play.  A furious 28-14 run by John Carroll in the last 10:55 sent the game into overtime, and a Mark Hester layup with 8.6 seconds to go in the extra period clinched the 84-82 Blue Streak victory snapping their two-game losing streak at the time.  

The Blue Streaks all-time are 22-20 in the OAC tournament since entering the conference in 1989-90. 

This season's appearance will mark John Carroll's 23rd consecutive birth into the postseason conference tournament.  Since joining the conference in 1989-90, John Carroll has never missed an OAC tournament. 
20-year head coach Mike Moran is seeking his fourth OAC tournament title in this year's tournament. 

A trip to the NCAA tournament at the conclusion of this week's tournament would be his 11th trip to the big dance as John Carroll's head coach.