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The SWAC is terrible…again.\u00a0 I understand the draw of this conference and its importance to the cultural landscape of sports, but it really doesn’t belong in D-I because (a) they just can’t get quality players and (b) they can’t keep them eligible.\u00a0 Again this year, 4 of the 10 teams in the conference are ineligible for postseason play because of academic reasons.\u00a0 The conference got a special exception this year to allow all 10 teams to play in the tournament, though, and the conference will – GET THIS – award the auto-bid to the eligible team that went the furthest in the tournament.\u00a0 Uh…WHAT?!?!?\u00a0 Yep, SWAC basketball…it’s FANNNN-tastic.\u00a0 By the way, the ineligible teams are the two last-place teams in MVSU and Grambling, the 4th-place team ARPB, and, yep, you guessed it, first-place and regular season dominant, Southern.\u00a0 Reminiscent of last year when the dominant team all year was Texas-Southern and yet they were ineligible for postseason play.\u00a0 Awesome.<\/p>\n
21 of the 25 have one of the top 2 seeds winning this tournament, with Southern getting 13 picks and Tx-Southern getting 8.\u00a0 Jackson State and Alcorn State are a couple of sleeper picks.\u00a0 GrossJr and Teddy both went perfect in the SWAC in 2013 and are trying to defend their titles.\u00a0 It was Teddy’s second SWAC championship – the only one with more than one.<\/p>\n
#2 Texas-Southern vs #8 Prairie View A&M<\/strong> No one has PVAM here, but 9 people have TSU (Alexi, Becks, Colton, Dave, Doogan, GrossJr, Stri, Stritts, Teddy).\u00a0 Colton will win the SWAC outright if the Tigers win this game.\u00a0 He will have to share the title with Bry if Prairie View pulls off another upset.<\/p>\n #2 Texas-Southern vs #3 Alabama State<\/strong> This is as big as it gets in the awful SWAC.\u00a0 PapaCim has already lost this game with Alcorn State.\u00a0 The other 24 are perfectly split down the middle on either side of this one.\u00a0 9 people (Alexi, Becks, Colton, Dave, Doogan, GrossJr, Stri, Stritts, Teddy) have Texas-Southern winning this tournament.\u00a0 Bry, Chris, and WaTers have them going to the finals, but losing there.\u00a0 Of the other 12 that have Alabama State, only Lazarow, Lynch, and Stumpf have them winning it all.<\/p>\n Texas-Southern 73 – Alabama State 61<\/em><\/p>\n #5 Alabama A&M vs #8 Prairie View A&M<\/strong> Dave and Lazarow are the only two with a chance to gain any points here, as they both have AAM in the finals.\u00a0 No one has either of these teams winning the tournament.<\/p>\n Prairie View A&M 55 – Alabama A&M 49<\/em><\/p>\n #3 Alabama State vs #6 Alcorn State<\/strong> 8 people (Becks, Bry, Dave, Doogan, GrossJr, PapaCim, Stri, WaTers) have the decent upset of Alcorn here.\u00a0 PapaCim has them going to the finals.\u00a0 Alabama State has the potential to bust some brackets in this one, though.\u00a0 Lazarow, Lynch, and Stumpf all\u00a0 have them winning this tournament.\u00a0 9 others (Caleb, Gersh, GrossSr, J, Lohse, Mac, Primm, RDoc, Scoot) all have them going to the finals, but losing.<\/p>\n Alabama State 64 – Alcorn State 51<\/em><\/p>\n #4 AR-Pine Bluff vs #5 Alabama A&M<\/strong> This is a total CTC toss-up game, as 13 have the underdog A&M, while 12 (Becks, Caleb, Chris, Colton, Gersh, GrossJr, J, Lohse, Lynch, Mac, RDoc, Stri) have UAPB.\u00a0 There are some future-round ramifications here, too, as Mac has UAPB winning this tournament.\u00a0 Becks, GrossJr, Lynch, and Stri has UAPB reaching the finals.\u00a0 Dave and Lazarow both put a finalist at risk here with A&M.<\/p>\n Alabama A&M 69 – AR-Pine Bluff 50<\/em><\/p>\n #2 Texas-Southern vs #10 Grambling State<\/strong> 6 people (J, Lazarow, Lohse, Mac, Primm, RDoc) have already lost this game with JSU.\u00a0 The other 19 all have Tx-S here, including 9 people (Alexi, Becks, Colton, Dave, Doogan, GrossJr, Stri, Stritts, Teddy) that have TSU winning this tournament.<\/p>\n Texas-Southern 79 – Grambling State 54<\/em> 19 people got this one right, including 9 that have the Tigers taking this tournament. #1 Southern vs #8 Prairie View A&M<\/strong> All 25 people have Southern here with most of the field taking them to win this tournament.<\/p>\n Prairie View A&M 64 – Southern 46<\/em> All 25 people lost this game, including a ton of people who had them winning this tournament. #8 Prairie View A&M vs #9 Mississippi Valley State<\/strong> Only 7 people went with the 8-seed Prairie View.\u00a0 No one has either of these teams beating Southern.<\/p>\n Prairie View A&M 79 – Mississippi Valley State 63<\/em><\/p>\n #7 Jackson State vs #10 Grambling State<\/strong> 5\u00a0people (Becks, Bry, Colton, Lynch, Stumpf)\u00a0took a shot with Grambling here.\u00a0 6 people (J, Lazarow, Lohse, Mac, Primm, RDoc) actually have JSU beating TxS in the quarters.<\/p>\n Grambling State 84 – Jackson State 75<\/em><\/p>\n Championship Picks<\/strong><\/p>\n Biggest Upsets<\/strong><\/p>\n Previous CTC Champions<\/strong><\/p>\n 2014 Scores<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The SWAC is terrible…again.\u00a0 I understand the draw of this conference and its importance to the cultural landscape of sports, but it really doesn’t belong in D-I because (a) they just can’t get quality players and (b) they can’t keep … Continue reading
\nThe Annual First Four Play-In game pits Texas-Southern and Prairie View.\u00a0 TSU has, expectedly, waltzed through the bottom half of the bracket, including a 12-point win over a decent Alabama State team in the semis on Friday.\u00a0 PVAM has won three straight to get here – crushing two prideless teams in MVSU and Southern before tackling Alabama A&M in Friday’s semifinal.\u00a0 The winner here is undoubtedly headed for Dayton’s First Four.<\/p>\nSEMIFINALS (March 14th – 8 points each)<\/h1>\n
\nWell, at least now we have done away with all the teams with nothing to play for and we are left with a 4-team tournament for the auto-bid.\u00a0 Texas-Southern, who wiped out Grambling on Wednesday, had a day to rest coming into this semi against a decent Alabama State team that took care of Alcorn State with ease.\u00a0 The winner of this game will\u00a0 be somewhat big favorites in the championship.<\/p>\n
\nPVAM was the benefactor of Southern’s embarrassing rollover performance on Wednesday, while Bama A&M took care of another team with nothing to play for, ARPB.\u00a0 Now, these two play for a game on ESPN.<\/p>\nQUARTEFINALS (con’t – March 13th – 4 points each)<\/h1>\n
\nBoth of these teams are at least eligible for postseason play, so that’s good.\u00a0 The winner will take on #2 Texas-Southern in the semis.<\/p>\n
\nIf UAPB is anything like Southern or MVSU, they will roll over and give up because they have no chance at the NCAA tournament.\u00a0 ‘Bama A&M does, so maybe they’ll get to roll through as if there were byes…oh wait, that’s how they were going to do it before giving these teams a chance to play for pride.\u00a0 The winner will take on the 8th-seeded Prairie View team that benefitted from Southern’s lack of any personal pride on Wednesday night<\/p>\nQUARTERFINALS (March 12th – 4 points each)<\/h1>\n
\nTexas-Southern was supposed to dominate this league, particularly with Aaric Murray (LaSalle transfer) in the fold.\u00a0 But, they were uneven and inconsistent.\u00a0 They started playing their best ball late, but didn’t come close to catching Southern, who ran away with it.\u00a0 But, the NCAA has upheld their ruling of making Southern ineligible, so Texas-Southern is really just playing a 4-team tournament hoping Southern makes the finals.\u00a0 If so, the other finalist would get the auto-bid regardless of the championship result.\u00a0 Game one of this mini-tournament will be against a Grambling team that is actually showing life and knocked off Jackson State on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\nTSU has no trouble with Grambling, as they roll into the semis.<\/span><\/p>\n
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\nSouthern was dominant in the SWAC this year, but it doesn’t matter because they will not be playing in the NCAA tournament because of academic issues.\u00a0 That impact could go two ways.\u00a0 It could make them less hungry because there isn’t that carrot at the end or it could make them hungrier because this is now their real finale for 2014.\u00a0 The first time we get to see any signs of which one will be in Wednesday’s quarterfinal against a PV team that knocked off Miss Valley State, who is also ineligible.<\/p>\n
\nWow, talk about a total lack of any personal pride.\u00a0 The Southern Jaguars – who are head and shoulders better than anyone in this league, particularly PVAM – found out a couple days ago that they weren’t going to be eligible for the NCAA tournament and so they just flat-out didn’t show up.\u00a0 PVAM is still alive here and is one of the few eligible teams in this tournament.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\nOPENING ROUND (March 11th – 2 points each)<\/h1>\n
\nPrairie View was supposed to compete for an upper-division finish, but lost some close games and fell to a pigtail game here.\u00a0 MVSU is ineligible for postseason and didn’t seem to care much about the season finishing only above (and barely) a Grambling team that lost like 1,000 straight games.\u00a0 The winner of this game faces another ineligible, top-seeded Southern.<\/p>\n
\nGrambling went 0-28 in 2012-13 and then lost their first 18 games against D-I opponents this year.\u00a0 So, after 46 straight losses, they – why not – win 3 of their next 6 games, with the 3 losses all rather close.\u00a0 So, I guess they are no longer an automatic win, which is bad news for Jackson State, who could use a few of them after a very disappointing season for them.\u00a0 Grambling is ineligible for postseason play, so I guess they’re just playing “for fun.”\u00a0 The winner takes on #2 Texas-Southern in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\nCTC UPDATE<\/h1>\n
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