Sports
Edgewood Native Coaches Way to March Madness
UNC-Asheville coach and Edgewood High grad Eddie Biedenbach faces an uphill battle to the Final Four.
Edgewood native Eddie Biedenbach is headed to his second NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament as head coach of the University of North Carolina-Asheville Bulldogs.
UNC-Asheville will meet the University of Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans in a first-round game this evening; the pressure will rocket up from there, however. A win would send the Bulldogs to a second-round clash with Biedenbach’s hometown team, #1 seed Pitt, Thursday.
Biedenbach is a 1963 graduate of the former Edgewood High School. After a handful of games in the NBA, he turned to coaching, getting his first taste of March Madness as an assistant at North Carolina State; that team won a national championship in 1974, toppling the Pitt Panthers along the way.
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As a head coach, though, his only postseason win came in a play-in game against Texas Southern in 2003. The Bulldogs edged the Tigers 92-84 in that contest, but were trounced by top seed Texas in the first round.
Biedenbach’s Bulldogs will face a similar challenge against the Panthers if they’re able to best Arkansas-Little Rock today; the Panthers are the #1 seed in the Southeast region and the #3 seed overall in the tournament.
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The Bulldogs and Trojans will tip-off today at 6:30 pm. The game can be seen on truTV or at NCAA.com.