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The second season tips-off tonight, Feb. 23, as the Cougar men's basketball team opens play in the 2011 Upper Midwest Athletic Conference Tournament.

The women play first at 5:30 p.m. against Martin Luther, with the men set to follow after at 7:30 p.m. against Bethany Lutheran.

If you can make it to Jim Gremmels Court, be sure to catch the live broadcast of each game on the Cougar Sports Network, especially with the expanded coverage!

It will be the third meeting of the season between the Cougars and Vikings, with Morris posting wins in each of the two previous meetings.

The Cougar men topped the Vikings 92-80 and 78-59 this season, as Morris finished the regular season 14-11 overall and 10-4 in conference action. Bethany Lutheran wrapped up the season 11-13 overall and 8-6 in conference play to finish in third place.

The other men's semifinal has top seed Northwestern hosting No. 4 seed Martin Luther.

UMMCougars.org recently caught up with the team to get some thoughts from the players as they head into the UMAC Tournament.

On getting two road wins to close out the regular season…
- It was relieving and fun! Especially down a couple guys. – Eric Dalbey
- It was great for building momentum going into the playoffs, which is what we are going to need in order to make a run at a championship. – Evan Reller
- It was pretty big, clinching the two seed and setting the tone for momentum in the playoffs – Brendon Foss
- It was a huge weekend. We solidified second place, got Dan and Dalbey's first wins ever at Scholastica, and did it all with only 10 guys. – Logan Orazem

On getting a home playoff game...
- It means a lot, getting a chance to play in front of our fans at least one more time and giving them a chance to be our sixth man is huge for us. – Eric Dalbey
- It's exciting, we have worked hard to earn a home playoff game and we ahve a great opportunity to play in front of a great crowd. – Austin Pinke
- We don't have to travel, and we get to play in front of a home crowd! – Zach Meyer
- It's huge. There is nothing like having your student section behind you in big playoff games. – Logan Orazem

On how they've been so tough at home...
- There is a different vibe for home games. We get to play in front of our home crowd, play in the gym we practice in everyday, and have a chance to send a team home with a loss. – Austin Pinke
- I think everyone is always pumped for a home game on your court in front of your own crowd and we all feel comfortable out there – Brendon Foss
- We don't like people winning on our court, so we take it seriously to try and win every time we play at home. – Zach Meyer
- I think a large part goes to our fans, but you can never beat playing at Jim Gremmels court. – Dan Fragodt

On getting 10 UMAC wins, after nine for three straight seasons...
- Well for me it is the most successful season I have had since I've been here so it feels good to have had a good year and last weekend of play and just hope it carries into the playoffs. – Eric Dalbey
- It is nice to have 10, because it put us in a good spot for playoffs, but theres always that feeling that we could have done better. It's playoff time now, though, and thats all that matters. – Evan Reller
- It feels great, I mean it always is nice racking up those conference wins and it goes to show its been a great successful season – Brendon Foss
- It's great to finally get a double digit UMAC win total! – Dan Fragodt

On how the team feels heading into the tournament...
- We're excited, we have worked hard all season to get where we're at right now and we're ready to go. – Austin Pinke
- There is a lot of excitement throughout the entire team as we really feel we can do some work and be happy with our results in the end – Brendon Foss
- Pretty confident. We know what's at stake, and we want to win the playoffs. – Zach Meyer
- Besides for a few bruises I think we are all feeling pretty good. We've put in a lot of hard work up to this point and we're confident with where we are right now. – Dan Fragodt

On playing Bethany Lutheran a third time...
- It should be a battle. We have a good history against Bethany but that is no reason to overlook our opponent. It's playoff time and anything can happen. – Austin Pinke
- Bethany is a good team and we expect them to show up again and play us tough so we'll be ready to come out and play our game and we'll be fine – Brendon Foss
- It's never easy beating a team three times in one season, but I think whichever team comes ready to play that night will get the victory. We just need to come ready to play. – Dan Fragodt

On how they regrouped last weekend, after a tough weekend before...
- We really just refocused ourselves and stressed the little things like team chemistry and defense. We just needed to keep it in our heads that we need to play up to our abilities and help each other instead of playing individually. – Eric Dalbey
- We had to really focus on why last weekend went the way it did. We came to practice that next week ready to learn from our mistakes and our results were what we wanted. – Austin Pinke
- It was basically just a gut check. We knew we were better than that, and we just needed to focus and finish the season on a high note. – Logan Orazem
- We just really pulled together as a team. We had two great team victories this last weekend, and it showed by us having to use everyone on the bench. Shows how valuable even those 10th and 11th guys can be. – Dan Fragodt