Northern Michigan University’s Max Bjorklund, right, gets fouled by Lake Superior State’s Kingsley Perkins in the first half of their GLIAC Tournament quarterfinal game at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Wednesday. (Photo courtesy Daryl T. Jarvinen)

INDIANAPOLIS — Not that surprisingly, two GLIAC schools received invitations to participate in the NCAA Division II men’s basketball tournament that starts Friday.

The 64-team field won’t include Northern Michigan University, which lost to Davenport 100-67 on Sunday in the GLIAC Championship game in Houghton.

One of the invitations was extended to Davenport (17-13), which despite only being the No. 8 seed in the conference tournament, knocked off No. 1 Ferris State and No. 4 Saginaw Valley State before beating the No. 3 Wildcats in the finale.

With the title of playoff champion goes the league’s automatic bid to the NCAAs.

The other bid went to Ferris, which still has a 21-8 record despite its first-round GLIAC tourney loss.

Meanwhile, NMU is 18-12.

One school that might have an argument over the invitation to Ferris is Michigan Tech, which was the conference tourney’s No. 2 seed and hosted the semifinals and finals after FSU was knocked out early. That plus the Huskies actually have a slightly better record than Ferris at 21-7.

Of the 64 berths in the NCAAs, 23 were reserved for automatic qualifiers, leaving 41 at-large spots that were selected by an NCAA-designated committee.

Ferris and Davenport were placed in the same eight-team region, Ferris the No. 2 seed and Davenport No. 8, though the host site and name of the region wasn’t listed with the bracket on the NCAA website, www.ncaa.com.

But Davenport opens against No. 1 seed Walsh, a former GLIAC member, while Ferris goes up against No. 7 Findlay, also an ex-GLIAC school.

Also in the bracket are No. 3 Hillsdale, yet another former GLIAC institution, No. 4 Truman State, No. 5 Missouri-St. Louis and No. 6 Cedarville.

Teams in this bracket will play Saturday, Sunday and next Tuesday.

Regional winners advance to the Elite Eight to be played in Evansville, Indiana, on March 22, 24 and 26. The NCAA website indicated that teams would be reseeded once the Elite Eight is established.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.