SELINSGROVE, PA — For the first time since 1997-98, the Susquehanna University men’s basketball team will take to the court in conference playoff action after compiling a 14-11 regular-season record and finishing fourth in the Commonwealth Conference with a 7-7 league mark.

Unfortunately for the Crusaders, the fourth-ranked team in the D3hoops.com poll awaits on Wednesday night as Susquehanna must travel to Elizabethtown for a 7:30 p.m. semifinal game at Thompson Gymnasium. The game can be heard locally on WQSU-FM (88.9) with the pregame show beginning at 7:15 p.m.

The Blue Jays (23-2, 13-1 Commonwealth) earned 14 of their 23 victories by 25 points or more and averaged 91.4 points per game as a team. Elizabethtown used the same starting lineup for all 25 games, with four of the Jays’ starters averaging 14 points per game on the season.

The teams met twice during the regular season, with Elizabethtown romping to victories at home on December 8 (107-79) and in Selinsgrove on January 26 (95-71). The Crusaders have lost six straight to the Blue Jays since January 30, 1999 and dropped four straight at Elizabethtown since January 31, 1998.

While the two teams have never met in the postseason, Elizabethtown has qualified for the conference playoffs eight times in the last nine years while the Crusaders had missed the postseason each of the last three seasons. No player on the Susquehanna roster has ever appeared in a playoff game in a Crusader uniform.

Elizabethtown has not won a conference playoff championship since the 1978-79 MAC Northern Division title, while the Crusaders’ last postseason title came in 1991-92 when Susquehanna earned the MAC North crown.

Susquehanna head coach Frank Marcinek is 6-6 all-time in the conference playoffs in his 13 seasons at the helm of the Crusaders, but the team has not won a postseason game since a 73-66 win over Lycoming in the MAC semifinals in 1995-96. In seven previous trips to the playoffs under Marcinek, the Crusaders are 4-3 in opening-round games.

Shooting should be the key to this matchup, as Elizabethtown leads the Commonwealth Conference in field-goal percentage at 51.5 percent. However, the Crusaders have broken the 50-percent mark in seven of the last 14 games — winning all seven games.

The winner of the Susquehanna-Elizabethtown semifinal will battle the winner of the other Commonwealth semifinal between Widener and Lebanon Valley for the conference title and a berth in the NCAA Division III playoffs on Saturday, February 23.