Xavier is a NCAA Tournament No. 3 seed, will face Kennesaw State Friday in Midwest region

Xavier University's men's basketball team is back in the place it expects to be every March, the NCAA Tournament.

The Musketeers were named a No. 3 seed in the Midwest Region by the selection committee.

Xavier (25-9) will play No. 14 Kennesaw State (26-8) on Friday in Greensboro, North Carolina.

"Being a part of the NCAA Tournament ... it's an honor," Xavier head coach Sean Miller said Sunday evening after his team watched the selection show together inside Cintas Center. "It takes an amazing amount of hard work."

It's the first NCAA Tournament appearance for the Musketeers since 2018 when Xavier was a No. 1 seed.

The seeds in the Midwest Region are: (1) Houston, (2) Texas, (3) Xavier, (4) Indiana, (5) Miami, (6) Iowa State, (7) Texas A&M, (8) Iowa, (9) Auburn, (10), Penn State, (11) Mississippi St./Pittsburgh, (12) Drake, (13) Kent State, (14) Kennesaw State, (15) Colgate, (16) Northern Kentucky.

"Each of us that are a part of the tournament, we have our own story," said Miller. "And I don't know if there's going to be one story that isn't going to be filled with adversity, obstacles, different things that all of us have had to overcome."

Xavier's 29th NCAA Tournament appearance

This is the third time Xavier's been a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Xavier NCAA Tournament history:A look at the Musketeers in the 'Big Dance'

The other two times were David West's senior year in 2003, and during Sean Miller's first stint at Xavier when the Musketeers went to the Elite Eight in 2008.

"This is just a testament to all the hard work we put in," Souley Boum told reporters on Sunday night after the selection show. "Now that we know who we're going to play, we can lock in on who we're going to play, the city that we're going to. It's just an amazing feeling. We're gonna be locked in, we're gonna be dialed in. We're gonna have an amazing week of prep.

"When that ball tips on Friday you're gonna see a hard-playing Xavier team, extremely, extremely hard playing."

Xavier's pod for the first two rounds

Also in Xavier's pod in Greensboro will be No. 6 seed Iowa State and the winner of the No. 11 Mississippi State-Pittsburgh game in Dayton.

Xavier and Kennesaw State will play at 12:40 p.m. on Friday on TruTV. The radio broadcast with Byron Larkin and Joe Sunderman will be on 700WLW.

Meet the Kennesaw State Owls, Xavier's first-round opponent

Kennesaw State is 26-8 and won both the Atlantic Sun Conference regular-season and tournament titles.

Kennesaw State has won 16 of its last 18 games. The Owls are led by 6-foot-4 guard Chris Youngblood, who averages 14.7 points per game and shoots 41% from 3-point range (79-for-192).

The Enquirer will update this story.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: NCAA Tournament Midwest region has No. 3 Xavier vs. Kennesaw State