SWAC
The Southwestern Athletic Conference has been dominated over the past few seasons by Mike Davis’ Texas Southern Tigers. Last season, his team won both the regular season and conference tournament championships before losing as a 16 seed to eventual national champion North Carolina in the Round of 64. This year, with only one starter returning, recapturing the league crown is by no means a lock. However, it is hard to pick against a program that has been this dominant in the conference, and we are not going to do so here.
Texas Southern will have some challengers, led by Alcorn State and Prairie View. Both teams return a pair of double-digit scorers and may have enough pieces to leap past Texas Southern if the Tigers are unable to rebuild quick enough. Unfortunately for the SWAC, a conference that we always love to discuss, the lack of a dominant team during the regular season may all but guarantee the automatic bid winner a trip to Dayton for the First Four.
Predicted Order of Finish
- Texas Southern – In his five seasons at Texas Southern, Mike Davis’ team has won either the regular season or conference tournament title (or both) every single year. This season may be his toughest yet, with only one starter back in Demontrae Jefferson. However, it is tough to pick against a team that has only lost 6 conference regular season games the last three years.
- Alcorn State – Senior forward Reginal Johnson did not make a single start last season, yet he led the team in scoring at 15.6 points per game and was second in rebounding with 7.1 per game. With him and senior guard A.J. Mosby back, the Braves should be a contender for the conference title.
- Prairie View A&M – Head coach Byron Smith guided the Panthers to ten SWAC wins in his first season and could improve on that number this time around with senior Zachary Hamilton, one of the league’s top players, back to lead his team. Between Hamilton and Troy Thompson, PVAMU will score a lot from the backcourt, but they need to find more help down low if they want a shot at capturing the league crown.
- Jackson State – The Tigers must find a way to replace three starters that combined to average over 35 points a game last season if they want to finish at or near the top of the conference standings. Senior guard Paris Collins may be able to pick up a good portion of that scoring load, and if he gets enough help around him from the newcomers, do not be surprised if Jackson State finishes even higher than this.
- Southern – Head coach Roman Banks is now the Athletic Director for Southern, placing former assistant Morris Scott in charge of running the men’s basketball team. The squad itself lost a pair of double-digit scorers from last season’s 15-18 team and may be hard-pressed to even equal that record this season.
- Alabama State – The Hornets should be improved on last season’s 8-23 mark behind the senior duo of Rodney Simeon and Terrance LeFlore. However, they need to get much better on the defensive end if the want to finish near the top of the standings.
- Alabama A&M* – The Bulldogs bring in long-time Mike Davis assistant Donnie Marsh as their new head coach. Although Marsh does not have many pieces to work with this season, sophomore guard De’Ederick Petty may be the perfect type of player for the new head coach to begin growing the program around. This year will not be great, but Marsh may be the perfect guy to get Alabama A&M’s program turned around.
- Arkansas-Pine Bluff – The Golden Lions lost 25 games last season and only return two starters from that squad. The good news is that they return a fair number of bench players that saw some significant minutes. This season will not be a step back, but don’t expect much of a step forward either.
- Grambling State* – Under Shawn Walker the Tigers went from 2 wins in 2014-15 all the way up to 15 wins last season. Then, almost inexplicably, his contract was not renewed and Donte’ Jackson takes over this season. Jackson may have a tough time in his first season with two of the team’s top three scorers gone, although senior forward Averyl Ugba should put up some very strong numbers.
- Mississippi Valley State – The Delta Devils lost four starters, and notably their top four scorers, from a team that only won 7 games last season. This may be a very long year in Itta Bena.
* Alabama A&M and Grambling State are ineligible for the NCAA Tournament due to APR postseason bans.
Doing the Right Thing is Wrong – The Braxton Beverly Decision
Braxton Beverly is a four-star point guard from Kentucky that attended Hargarve Military Academy in Virginia. As a sought-after recruit, he ended up being a big addition when Thad Matta recruited him to play for the Ohio State Buckeyes starting this season. Braxton did everything right, and now, thanks to the genius of the NCAA, he has to pay for it.
Braxton graduated high school and committed to Ohio State. He decided to get a jump on his college career, enrolling for a pair of summer classes in Columbus. This has the signs of nothing other than a hard-working kid (hey, he did go to a military academy!), who committed to a head coach and decided to get ahead of the game in his academics.
Then came the firing. Thad Matta was terminated at Ohio State and Braxton, for reasons that are between him and new head coach Chris Holtmann, decided that he did not want to attend Ohio State. His separation from the Buckeyes was amicable, and he signed to play his career for Kevin Keatts at North Carolina State. He had started a pair of summer courses but did not finish them, thus gaining nothing other than a few hours in the classroom from Ohio State.
The NCAA has now declared that Braxton cannot play at NC State this season, but must sit out the entire year as a transfer (he will have all four years of eligibility left at least). The reason for this decision was that, due to his enrollment in two summer course, Braxton is now a transfer student. Regardless of whether you feel that transfers should even have to sit out a year, to apply this rule in Braxton’s case, where he did absolutely nothing wrong, is utterly ridiculous. He wanted to play for Thad Matta – it was not his fault Ohio State fired him. He wanted to get ahead in his coursework — he did the right thing and now has to sit out a year. The worst part is that it is our understanding he isn’t even getting credits for having completed those courses — all he did was enroll in them for a few weeks.
The last time I checked, the NCAA Core values were as follows:
“The Association – through its member institutions, conferences and national office staff – shares a belief in and commitment to:
[Source: http://www.ncaa.org/about/ncaa-core-values]
Braxton Beverly is a student-athlete. The word “student” comes first in that term. He tried to get ahead of the game and take a few summer courses, using the “supporting role that intercollegiate athletics play in the higher education mission” the way it was intended. Instead, he is now being unfairly penalized. He was acting in “pursuit of excellence in both academics and athletics”. For this, he has to sit and watch his teammates from the sideline this year.
The message being sent by the NCAA in denying Braxton’s application for a waiver and subsequent appeal of that waiver is clear. Don’t enroll in summer courses. Don’t try to get ahead. Don’t put academics first. Combine this with the recent rulings from the North Carolina investigation and it becomes “we would rather you take fake courses that you do not even need to attend than actually put in the work.” Why do we even bother sending these kids to classes at all? Let’s just let them play basketball for four years and, if they don’t become pros, there are plenty of minimum wage jobs available. Maybe I am naive to believe that the term student-athlete means something, but if it does, the least the NCAA could do is reward those that put student first instead of punish them.