The Iowa State men’s and women’s basketball teams swept the Big 12 Conference tournaments over the weekend and brought home both championship trophies to Ames.

Sunday, when the NCAA seedings were announced, both teams were rewarded.

The men’s team was seeded No. 2, the highest ever for the school, in the Midwest region. That means the Cyclones will open up the tourney in Minneapolis at the Metrodome, a relatively short drive for Cyclone fans.

“They said it was Hilton South in Kansas City; it’ll probably be Hilton North up there,” said men’s head coach Larry Eustachy.

The men will play their first game at about 2 p.m. Thursday afternoon against Central Connecticut State, a team that won the Northeast Conference with a record of 25-5 overall.

“I told our team that any team that we face won their conference championship, and it’s going to be a tough team that’s well coached,” Eustachy said.

The ISU coach has already seen some of the Blue Devils on film. “I stayed up all night watching film of them,” Eustachy said.

This game will mark the first NCAA berth in the history of Central Connecticut State program, who is led by shooting guard Rick Mickens. The Northeast Conference’s Player of the Year, Mickens averages 17.7 points per game and is second in the nation with 3.6 steals per game.

The team also has a good small forward in John Tice, who shoots 43 percent from three-point range while averaging 14.8 points per game.

The man in the middle for CCSU is Corsley Edwards, who is 6-9 and 270 pounds. Averaging 12.2 points, he has 10 double-doubles this year.

The Blue Devils have four players who score in double figures, and they employ a nine-man rotation.

The strength of the team is its defensive prowess. They hold opponents to 37.6 percent shooting from the floor, good for one of the top marks in the nation, by playing a variety of zone defenses.

The Cyclones, who are 19-point favorites, would take on either Creighton or Auburn in the second game if they win the first.

The women, meanwhile, were denied a No. 2 seed but were placed in a favorable bracket with third- and fourth-round games close to home.

Because of its No. 3 seed, Iowa State will host the first two games at Hilton Coliseum. If the Cyclones can win those two, they will venture to Kansas City for the regional finals. Iowa State has the chance to play in the same Municipal Auditorium which saw the Cyclones win the Big 12 Tournament last weekend by an average of 27 points per game.

The Cyclones will play the first-round game Friday night at about 8:30 p.m. against St. Francis College of Pennsylvania. The Red Flash won the Northeast Conference and finished 23-7 overall.

They are led by one of the nation’s top scorers and rebounders, Jess Zenobile, who averages 23.2 points and 11.9 rebounds on the inside. St. Francis has only one other player in double figures.

If the Cyclones can avoid the upset, they will take on the winner of the Illinois-Utah game, played Sunday night at 8:35 p.m. at Hilton Coliseum.