Southland Conference
March 8-12. All games at Katy, Texas.
kPOY: Thomas Walkup, Stephen F. Austin.
The Southland tournament gets underway on Wednesday with two first-round games at the Merrell Center.
Stephen F. Austin is the biggest favorite in any tournament this March. Part of it is the Jacks’ dominance of the league – they were the only team in the land to finish with a perfect conference record – and part of it is the bracket in which the top two seeds only have to win two games to claim a title. Just twice did SFA win a conference game by single digits, and the program has gone 57-1 against Southland teams over the past three seasons, so it’s tough to envision a scenario involving an upset. But Holy Cross made the Patriot League final by winning three road games after it didn’t win a conference road game all season, so don’t get too carried away with applying logic to tournament basketball.
Congrats to SFA senior Thomas Walkup, who took kPOY honors with a stellar 131 offensive rating while using 27 percent of the Lumberjacks’ possessions. Walkup actually posted a 138 offensive rating in conference games. But given the strength of the Southland, don’t expect him to reproduce that kind of super-human efficiency against whatever NCAA tournament foe Stephen F. Austin may face.
Qtrs Semis Final Champ 1 Stephen F. Austin 100 100 93.6 76.4 2 Texas A&M Corpus Christi 100 100 67.8 16.7 3 Sam Houston St. 100 79.8 29.6 5.1 4 Houston Baptist 100 62.7 4.7 1.3 8 New Orleans 52.1 19.9 0.9 0.2 5 Southeastern Louisiana 47.9 17.4 0.8 0.1 6 McNeese St. 50.5 10.3 1.3 0.09 7 Nicholls St. 49.5 9.9 1.3 0.07
Southland tourney records (since 1999)
Northwestern St. 19- 9 Lamar 11- 6 Texas A&M Corpus Christi 6- 4 Stephen F. Austin 16-11 Sam Houston St. 17-13 McNeese St. 13-13 New Orleans 1- 1 Southeastern Louisiana 7-10 Nicholls St. 2-10 Central Arkansas 0- 1