The McNeese Men’s basketball team is headed back to the NCAA Tournament for a third consecutive season after beating Stephen F. Austin 76-59 in the Southland Conference Tournament Championship game. Coach Bill Armstrong took over for Will Wade and keeps the streak of Big Dance invitations going, but Armstrong credits the players.
“The people that deserve all the credit are these guys right here. They put in all the work, starting June 1, working towards this, and this was the final piece of the puzzle to get to the NCAA Tournament. Now we’ve got a little more work to do,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong becomes the first coach in Southland history to earn an NCAA Tournament bid in his first season as a Division I head coach.
Senior guard Javohn Garcia erupted for a career-high 31 points in the win. Garcia says the Cowboys were not going to let the Lumberjacks end their 27-game winning streak at home.
“Everyone on the team, we had that mindset, like we weren’t losing. We said, before we came in, we don’t lose at home, and we had the mindset that we weren’t going to lose today, and we came out victors,” Garcia said.
McNeese is one of the few teams in college basketball to win three straight conference titles. Senior guard DJ Richards Jr. says earning their way into the big dance is an accomplishment no one can take away from them.
“There’s people in the power conference leagues that never make it to the tournament, and we’ve been to the tournament three years in a row in a one-bid league. That’s hard to do,” Richards said.