Time for a Tiger Dance
Grambling State punched their ticket to March Madness for the first time ever on Saturday in a tight win over Texas Southern in the SWAC Championship game. Photo by Marcus Plummer
It’s real. Grambling State is going dancing.
After 47 years of falling short, 47 years of strong regular seasons ending in late heartbreak and missing out on March Madness, the GSU men’s basketball team conquered their near 50year curse and won the Southwestern Athletic Conference ( SWAC) tournament championship 75-66 over Texas Southern on Saturday, advancing to the school’s first ever berth in the NCAA Tournament since joining the Division I level in 1977.
It’s also the first time ever Grambling (20-14) has won 20 games in consecutive seasons.
“ It’s a surreal moment, probably one that I’m going to have to reflect on it because there’s so much going on right now,” GSU head coach Donte Jackson told the Leader after the win. “Coming to Grambling, people asked me what I was doing, ‘it’s the worst job in the country. Why do you want to go do that?’ I was a DII coach and AD but opportunity is everything, and I knew that at Grambling it was possible.
“I knew it couldn’t stay down forever. Seven years, three regular season titles and now a trip to the tournament,” he added.
The Tigers came out on fire offensively, shooting 56% in the first half, including well over 70% through the first 12 minutes of the game, to lead 41-24 at halftime. GSU did just about everything right: shot 7-of-11 from three (all off assists), held TSU to just 39% from the field in the first 20 minutes with 6 turnovers, and found multiple scoring threats from bench players to build early control.
Jourdan Smith knocked down a seasonhigh 3 triples to get to 16 points by halftime, while Antwan Burnett had 6 points at the break.
GSU looked like it was going to roll up TSU and spit them out. Even in the early minutes of the second half, Grambling extended its lead to 18 as the Tigers got TSU into foul trouble on tough drives — appearing to get ready to cruise to an easy night of history.
But TSU, the reigning SWAC champions for three- straight years, punched back and made GSU sweat down the stretch, cutting the deficit to within nine on multiple occasions as it took advantage of GSU’s missing nine free throws and missing its first seven three-point attempts in the second half.
The late surge looked to be the usual heartbreak coming GSU’s way — another season ending in an improbable defeat. Not this time, as Tra’Michael Moton answered with GSU’s first and only three of the second half to make it 71-58. GSU never looked back.
Moton finished with a game-high 7 assists to go with his 8 points. Smith ended with 20 points and 3 rebounds, while Antwan Burnett finished with 14 points and 4 rebounds.
GSU finished 8-of-19 (42%) from three-point range, assisting on all eight threes as part of its 16 total assists.
“We’ve said it all year about how we want to be unselfish on offense and whenever you drive inside don’t just think about yourself. Make the extra pass and look where the defense isn’t and we came and did that tonight,” Jackson said.
Before Jackson took over as head coach in 2017- 18, GSU had not won more than 16 games since 1983- 84. They’ve reached that threshold five times since and are now making their first trip to the Big Dance.
Grambling State will face fellow No. 16 seed Montana State in the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in the First Four. Tipoff is scheduled for 5:40 p.m. on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio. The game will be broadcast on TruTV. The winner faces No. 1 seed Purdue Friday in Indianapolis.
