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San Marcos, Texas – The No. 4 seeded Texas State men's basketball team will play the No. 5 seed Southeastern Louisiana in the quarterfinals of the 2011 State Farm Southland Conference Tournament. The tournament will get underway on March 9 at the Merrell Center in Katy, Texas. The Bobcats and the Lions will be the last game of the day with an approximate start time of 8:30 p.m.
With a victory on Wednesday night, Texas State will play the winner of No. 1 McNeese State/No. 8 Nicholls on Thursday, March 10 at 8:30 p.m. The championship game is slated for Saturday, March 12 at 3 p.m. and will air on ESPN2.
Last time Texas State and Southeastern Louisiana played each other was on February 23. Tony Bishop netted 22 points and 10 rebounds to lift Texas State to an 82-69 come from behind victory at Strahan Coliseum. The win at the time was the Bobcats seventh consecutive conference home victory as it boosted their record to 9-4 in conference play. In addition to Bishop's double-double, Cameron Johnson had 16 points and Eddie Rios tallied 12. Ryan White and John Bowman added 11 points each.
Texas State is led by senior co-captains Bishop and Johnson who lead the Bobcats in both scoring and rebounding. Johnson is averaging 12.9 points per game and 5.4 rebounds per game, while Bishop is right behind him with 12.8 points per game and has a team-leading 8.0 rebounds per game.
The Bobcats entered the final game of the regular season with a chance to share the conference regular season title, but they were handed a 68-52 loss to the Bearkats and dropped to the No. 4 seed in the tournament due to the tiebreaker scenarios.
A perfect conference streak at Strahan Coliseum is what highlighted the Bobcats 2011 season at home. The Bobcats went 8-0 at home beating every west division opponent and even taking down east division foes Northwestern State, Nicholls and Southeastern Louisiana. Texas State concluded the season with a current home win streak of 10, dating back to non-conference play as well.
The Bobcats hold a 15-15 overall record and a 10-6 count in conference play. The 10-6 league record is the best finish for Texas State against the current 12 conference members. Last year the Bobcats finished 9-7 and were the fifth seed in the tournament.
Wednesday will mark the third straight appearance for Texas State in the tournament and the second consecutive year that Texas State will play Southeastern Louisiana in the quarterfinal game. Last year, both teams battled all the way to an overtime thriller where the fourth-seeded Lions went 1-for-2 at the free throw line with 2.3 seconds left in the game to capture a 79-78 victory over the fifth-seeded Bobcats and give them a first round departure for the second straight season.
This will be the Bobcats 17th time earning a trip to the Southland Conference Tournament. The last time the Bobcats won the tournament title was in 1997 when it beat Louisiana-Monroe, 74-64, to take the crown. Texas State has won the tournament twice, with the other time being in 1994 with a 69-60 win over North Texas.
