WHAT HAPPENED?

It was known that Southern University’s basketball teams went to Houston, TX without being able to enter the NCAA tournament.
But it wasn’t meant to end this early. 
Southern University’s men’s and women’s basketball teams were crowned with the 2013-2014 Regular Season Championship and invited as the first seed into the Southwestern Athletic Conference Championships from March 11-15 at the Toyota Center in Houston. 
The SWAC Council proposed to the NCAA for this year only to allow Southern and other ineligible schools to play in the SWAC Championships. This proposal was accepted and therefore the Southern basketball teams participated in the tournament.  
With both teams duplicating positive results all season, the duplication ended with shocking results. 
In awe, SU lost against the Prairie View A&M Panthers, the same school, which was the lower seed of the men’s and women’s bracket. 
Our loss left Prairie View A&M to face Texas Southern in the SWAC Championships for both men and women.
SU students are surprised by what happened attributing to the losses of both teams in the SWAC Championships because they had high expectations for Southern to win. The only question that peaked in their eyes was, “why?” 
Lawrence Legard, a sophomore education major from Baton Rouge said, “I believe that Southern lost hope because they had nothing to play for and they played at the level of competition that was offered to them. I cannot vouch for their mindset entering the competition but I would feel miserable.” said Legard.
 “I think this was a sign of hopelessness.” Senior, sociology major, John M. White spoke on the concept of the journey, “Both teams could have easily gone ahead and won the SWAC but due to unfortunate events, they weren’t motivated because they felt that to play was in vain.” said White.
The men’s basketball team (19-13, 15-3) had an impeccable season and was awarded the regular season championship before the SWAC tournament. Even though they were plagued by the NCAA probation, they finished the SWAC conference on top. 
In the previous game with the loss against Texas Southern 64-67, SU approached the tournament with the intention of grasping the Holy Grail, the championship gold.
It didn’t happen when they lost 64-46. 
“We went through our challenges on and off the court,” Southern’s head coach Roman Banks said, “Tonight we did not match our intensity, and they beat us.” said Banks.
Senior guard, Malcolm Miller led the Jaguars in the quarterfinals of the SWAC tournament (7-13) with 16 points and with the offense trailing in point coverage; Calvin Godfrey comes behind with 12 points. 
The jaguars shot at 35.6% in the key, 14% outside of the perimeter, and 14% at the free throw line in their tough loss against TSU.
out with a 36.0% from the field and 25.0% from three-point range. JSU now stands at the level 7 seed while Grambling resides in last place. 
One could only tell the tale of the fight that raged that day between the rivals of the SWAC but Southern still are ahead of the game in the SWAC leaving a trail, a legacy, to be told in the days of yon. 
Southern University showed its aggressiveness and came up with a hard fought win, but the battle was intense. The score final score was 68-63, Southern.
Tre Hagood led the panthers (10-22) with 16 points while Jules Montgomery came from behind with 12 points. 
In the first round match in the SWAC Championship Southern made it clear that the team that was playing then was not the team that was playing the panthers on March 6th when SU won 91-59 back home at the F.G. Clark Activity Center.
Coming off of a tremendous win, it seems like a mystery as to how the other team would pick up the win at the SWAC Championship after the previous game. 
In the previous game against the panthers, the offense was on a roll with double digit scoring from five players: Trelun Banks, Calvin Godfrey, Yondarius Johnson, Malcolm Miller, and Javon Mitchell. 
Leading scorer for the game, Yondarius Johnson scored 18 points that game with 7-14 in the key and 1-4 outside the perimeter. 
“It was a game that we excelled at but this time we didn’t reach the expectations,” Banks said.
On the other hand, the women’s basketball team clinched their regular season’s title at the last home game on March 8th after they won 71-66 against Texas Southern. 
It was a neck and neck climb to reach the number one seed in the SWAC as weeks ahead Texas Southern claimed the number one seed of the conference.
On the second day of the SWAC tournament, March 12th, the Lady Jags erupted onto the scene and won against Alabama A&M 80-66 and advanced to the second round of the tournament to face the fourth seeded Prairie View A&M (13-17). 
To their dismay, reflecting the men’s basketball team mistake, they lost against the panthers. 
The Lady Jags obtained no double digit scoring this night. Instead, junior post, Jasmine Jefferson led the team with nine points and 16 rebounds. 
Usual leading scorer, Junior guard Kendra Coleman, only scored five points with 16 percent from the floor and missing all seven of her three point shots. Attributing the same points as Coleman was senior guard, Adrian Sanders. 
Following behind was the spark from the last home game, sophomore guard, Britney Washington as she only shot 20 percent from the floor and 14 percent from outside the perimeter. 
The Lady Jags shot 25.4 percent from the floor while also shooting 6 percent from the three-point line. 
PVAMU’s Jeanette Jackson ran through the defense and scored 18 points and following with 10 were Alexus Parker and Garbielle Scott. The panthers shot 38.5 percent in the key and 25 percent outside the perimeter. 
It was a sad night for the Lady Jags, a sad night indeed. 
This was the women’s shot to win the SWAC title, since their last time being named SWAC Champs in 2010. 
Southern University Lady Jaguars finished the season (20-8, 16-2), with two seniors experiencing their final game with a loss in the second round of the SWAC Championship. 
“We played hard, but we couldn’t get any shots to fall through. We were completely out of sync. We put all of our effort in offense and didn’t seem to do much else,” said Head Coach of the Lady Jaguars Sandy Pugh said.