MBB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Ron Boerger]

SCAC championships begin today at Austin College - broadcast and stat links are here. 

Today:
noon CST:  #4 TLU (10-14/8-8 SCAC) vs #5 Centenary (12-12, 7-9 SCAC)
2pm CST:  #3 Schreiner (14-11/12-4 SCAC) vs #6 Southwestern (9-16, 6-10 SCAC)

Tomorrow:
noon CST:  #1 St. Thomas (20-5/14-2 SCAC) vs #4/#5 winner
2pm CST:  #2 Trinity (21-4/13-3 SCAC) vs #3/#6 winner

Sunday:
noon CST:  Saturday winners for championship

St. Thomas is on a nine-game winning streak, including an OT win over TLU in Seguin a little over a week ago.  Their last loss was to Trinity immediately before the streak began.  For their part, the Bulldogs have won four of five, spurred by an upset at Trinity the week before.  That loss was Trinity's sole defeat in their last eleven games.

I can't find the post/tweet, but with St. Thomas in the final year of their transition to D3, they're not eligible for the NCAAs.  If I remember correctly the SCAC has decided to award the Pool A bid not to the championship runners-up but to the regular season runner-up, which means Trinity will be going (on the road as they're not regionally-ranked) regardless of this weekend's results. 

[Pat Coleman]

Thanks for the heads-up on that. That led me to dig into it and it seems that is the case only if St. Thomas wins the tournament:

The winner of this year's championship tournament will represent the conference in the NCAA Tournament as the league's automatic qualifier, with one noted exception. In its final season as a NCAA Division III provisional member, if St. Thomas were to win this year's tournament, then the highest-seeded team eligible to participate in the tournament will be selected, which would be Trinity as the No. 2 seeded team.
https://scacsports.com/sports/mbkb/2021-22/releases/22bracket_announced

(Yes, Trinity also goes if it wins the tournament.)

[Ron Boerger]

Oops, yes, I made a decently large-sized assumption there, didn't I?  Obviously the winner - if it's not St. Thomas - gets to go to the NCAAs.   Thanks for the reset.

[Ron Boerger]

It was a good day for #5 seeds in the SCAC tournament, as like Austin in the women's side, #5 Centenary gets the mild upset to join #3 Schreiner in the semis later today.   Centenary will face top-seeded St. Thomas and Schreiner will match up with Trinity for the right to meet in Sunday's championship.  The Mountaineers got a tip in off his own miss by Jalen Ned as time expired to defeat Southwestern by a single point. 

Centenary was 0-2 against St. Thomas in the regular season with both games decided by double digits.  The same was true for Schreiner against Trinity despite the first game going to OT before the Tigers pulled away. 

[Ron Boerger]

No surprises today in the SCAC semis.  St. Thomas led 15-10 midway through the first half, then went on a 26-9 explosion before the buzzer sounded to take a 43-19 lead at the break.   Schreiner would get no closer than 17 in the second half as the Celts eased to a 75-56 win.   Freddie Ricks III came off the bench to lead the way with 17 points, as did Adam Kanafani who had 14 boards to lead all players.  Tevin Baker had 22 for the Gents, who only managed 19 total rebounds (to St. Thomas' 48), one offensive. 

Trinity and Schreiner got off to an even slower start in which the Tigers didn't score until over three minutes in but still tied it at 3 when Tanner Brown (16 points to lead all scorers) hit the free throw after hitting a layup.  It was 15-13 Trinity halfway through the opening stanza and the Tigers gradually pulled away to take a seven point lead at the half in an increasingly foul-plagued game.  Thanks to some timely three-point shooting the lead would more than double at the second half midpoint and the lead would continue to grow until the end in a 88-65 victory in which 50 fouls were called.   Playing in the final game of a fine career, Schreiner's Alex Dehoyos tied for the team lead with 14 points which were matched by Jalen Ned.  Besides Brown, Trinity would put four players in double figures:  Clark (14), Sechi (11 before fouling out), Jenkins and Harvey (10 each).

And now I can say it:  with the win, Trinity clinches the SCAC pool A bid.  The two teams will face off for the tournament championship tomorrow with Trinity looking to avenge last year's home court loss to St. Thomas. 

[Ron Boerger]

As seems to be recent history between the two teams, St. Thomas got out to a huge early lead behind hot three point shooting (11-20 in the first half), Trinity could never find the range and trailed 42-26 at half.  The Tigers cut the six five minutes in, but could not sustain the comeback and trailed by 12 when an iffy tech was called on Kaleb Jenkins. After the free throws and yet another three the lead was up to 17, but Trinity gradually closed it down to six with 3 1/2 minutes left.  Unfortunately that would be the last point for the Tigers as the Celts would go on a 13-0 run from there to take their second straight SCAC tourney championship, 77-58.

Christian Alaekwe had himself a game with 21 points, 11 boards, and three steals.  Andrew Nguyen hit his first five three shots from distance and ended there with 15 points, Cameron Gims had 11 and Juan Hood 10.  The Celts hit nearly half their threes, 15 of 33 (46%).  Trinity got 20 off the bench from Jacob Harvey (7 of 8, three of Trinity's four made threes in five attempts) and 11 from Enzo Sechi, who had an otherwise forgettable day shooting 5 of 18 and 0 for 6 from distance.  Trinity players not named Harvey were ONE OF TWENTY-THREE from beyond the arc, and many of those misses were on wide open looks.

Alaekwe, Gims, and Hood all graduate, along with Freddie Hicks who averages 9 points off the bench.  With the exception of Hood those are the last to participate in NAIA ball before St. Thomas started the transition to D3 - Joshua Sanchez redshirted that season.  It will be interesting to see how the Celts fare next season.  As for Trinity, they probably get to hop on a plane for the NCAAs, but will likely be seeded very poorly after today's result and face a very tough opponent in the first round. 

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity heads to Belton where they will face Whitworth (22-4).  Winner of that game faces the winner of UMHB (25-2) and Chapman (22-4).

Edit:  3pm start on Friday.

[Riley Zayas]

Trinity travels up I-35 to Belton, facing Whitworth this afternoon at 3 pm local time...should be a great contest! Here's what you need to know about the Belton pod:

https://truetothecru.com/2022/03/03/previewing-the-belton-pod-umhb-mens-hoops-hosts-opening-rounds-of-ncaa-tournament/

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity travels up I-35 to Belton, facing Whitworth this afternoon at 3 pm local time...should be a great contest! Here's what you need to know about the Belton pod:

https://truetothecru.com/2022/03/03/previewing-the-belton-pod-umhb-mens-hoops-hosts-opening-rounds-of-ncaa-tournament/

The NCAA live video link never worked (grr) but Trinity put on one of their frequent second half blitzes to put away Whitworth, 77-52, outscoring the Pirates 44-22 in the second half.   Tanner Brown led all scorers with 20 as Trinity outshot Whitworth 48%-31% and had a 23-9 advantage at the free throw line.  This was the first win for Trinity in seven games between the two.

[D3Navy]

Trinity travels up I-35 to Belton, facing Whitworth this afternoon at 3 pm local time...should be a great contest! Here's what you need to know about the Belton pod:

https://truetothecru.com/2022/03/03/previewing-the-belton-pod-umhb-mens-hoops-hosts-opening-rounds-of-ncaa-tournament/

This is a terrific, confidence-building win.  Officiating early in the 2nd half was spotty and could have shut down the momentum, but TU pushed through admirably.  A Tiger-Crusader game tomorrow will be a nice follow to the football contest.  Got a good buddy who teaches at Chapman who tells me they have a wicked 3-point shooter, Hayden Moore, to keep an eye on.

Good stuff!

The NCAA live video link never worked (grr) but Trinity put on one of their frequent second half blitzes to put away Whitworth, 77-52, outscoring the Pirates 44-22 in the second half.   Tanner Brown led all scorers with 20 as Trinity outshot Whitworth 48%-31% and had a 23-9 advantage at the free throw line.  This was the first win for Trinity in seven games between the two.

[Ron Boerger]

TLU HC Mike Wacker announced his retirement today, effective immediately.  Health concerns (neuropathy) led him to make the decision after 37 years in the coaching ranks.  His record at TLU was 79-69 in six seasons, including two SCAC tournament titles in 2017 and 2019.  He also had a 703-196 record at the high school level.

It won't be the same without a Wacker at TLU.  Godspeed, coach. 

[Ron Boerger]

Current TLU recruiting coordinator and assistant head coach Austin Falke will replace Wacker at TLU.  Prior to working with Wacker, Falke was an assistant under current Trinity coach Jimmy Smith his first two years at TLU as well as for two years at Schreiner. 

[Ron Boerger]

Fun story about some of the TU ballers (on both the men's and women's side) participating in a D3 group that played in Brazil this summer:   https://www.trinitytigers.com/sports/mbkb/2022-23/releases/20220811hfgm1r

[Ron Boerger]

First d3hoops rankings of the season put Trinity at 18, while St Thomas received votes.   UMHB, ranked second and receiving four first place votes, leads the region.

How did Trinity go from barely receiving votes into the top 25?  One reason: TU returns 5 of their top 6 scorers (Clark and Harvey as super seniors).  St. Thomas, who might have been expected to see more votes after winning the SCAC and posting a 22-5 record last season, loses 3 of 5 (Ricks returns as a super senior). 

[Ron Boerger]

And if you exclude the oddity that was the 20-21 season (which saw Trinity 14th of the 15 teams ranked in week 7 of the 8 polls done that year) this is the first Top 25 ranking for the Tigers since the final ranking of the 2008-9 season, when they were 21st.  Those were the closest things to glory years in San Antonio as that was the last of four seasons in a six-year period where they were ranked, topping out at third in the 2005 final poll, after giving eventual national champion UW-SP their closest game in that year's playoffs by far in the sectional final held at UW-SP.

Thank you d3hoops for keeping both an archive of top 25 polls as well as that championship season and many others.