Tigers return to full strength for tourney push
Texas Southern enters the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament as the No. 3 seed and the top-scoring team in the conference, led by two of the top five scorers in the league.
Yet somehow the Tigers (1219, 12-6 in SWAC) missed out on any all-conference honors or accolades.
“It’s definitely surprising. We may be the only conference where the leading scorer didn’t make any team. I think they definitely missed something out there,” said Donte Clark, the third-leading scorer in the SWAC with 18.3 points per game.
Beyond Clark, guard Demontrae Jefferson (24.1 points per game) and Trayvon Reed, who led the SWAC in blocks per game (2.8) and finished second in rebounding (8.8), also were snubbed, although Jefferson only played in 71 percent of the team’s games. (The SWAC doesn’t officially consider statistics for players involved in less than 75 percent of their team’s games).
“You’re happy for all the guys that made it; you don’t want to take away anything from them. But I thought that we had some guys on our team who should’ve been on the all-conference team,” coach Mike Davis said. “The winning is there and the scoring is there.”
Davis said he doesn’t plan to use the snubs as motivation heading into Tuesday’s quarterfinal matchup against Alabama State (7-21, 7-9), a team the Tigers swept in the regular season. The winner advances to Friday’s semifinals at Delmar Fieldhouse.
“To make all-conference is a lifetime achievement. It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “(But) we just have to keep getting better and have fun, that’s it. The next game you lose, you’re done.”
The Tigers were winless in non-conference play and tumbled through a rocky January. But TSU ended the regular season by winning six of eight games, including the last four.
“I think we want to continue what we’re doing because we’re on a four-game winning streak,” Clark said. “I feel like we want to keep building on doing what we’re doing as far as reducing points scored on us and making sure we get stops on defense.”
For players, losing out on postseason honors hurts, but they’re not focusing on the lack of recognition.
“I don’t know what that’s about. I don’t understand it,” Reed said. “Numbers don’t lie. Whoever got it, I guess they deserve it. No one has their heads down about it. We’re just trying to get better.”
The silver lining for TSU is that Reed and forward Lamont Walker will suit up for the Tigers on Tuesday at H&PE Arena. Walker is back in action after a four-game suspension kept him out through the end of February. Reed sat with Walker before serving another suspension in the regular-season finale against Alcorn State.
“I feel like we had some ups and downs throughout the year,” Reed said. “Even though it’s towards the end, I’m just pushing to get better every game. We want to win the SWAC tournament and get called on Selection Sunday.”
Davis is hoping his team continues to find its rhythm into March.
“I thought we had too many situations where we didn’t have our team in terms of personnel,” he said. “When you lose two guys to injury for all of conference play and you lose guys that had other issues during conference play ... at this level, it’s hard to play your best when all your guys aren’t out on the court.
“If you’re fortunate enough to get into the tournament, that’s a whole new season, a whole new field, a whole new attitude. March is the month to create miracles and do things you’ve built to all year long. We’ve got to bring it together now.”