SAN MARCOS, Texas - Riding a seven-game winning streak -- with five of the wins coming at home -- Texas State men's basketball enters the last week of the regular season needing at least one win to claim the Sun Belt regular season championship.

The Bobcats will open the final two-game stretch on Wednesday at South Alabama for a 7 p.m. contest. The game can be seen on ESPN+ and heard on the Varsity Sports Network, with Clint Shields on the call. The pregame show with Shields will start at 6:30 p.m.

Texas State is currently ahead of App State for the No. 1 seed in the Sun Belt Tournament and has already clinched a top-three seed.
 
SERIES HISTORY: VS. SOUTH ALABAMA
Texas State and South Alabama will be meeting for 13th time on Wednesday. However, it will be the first time facing one another since March 3, 2020 (a whole pandemic ago).

The Bobcats lead the all-time series 8-4. They have lost two of the last three meetings, including the last matchup on March 3, 2020 (L, 58-54 in Mobile).
This season's earlier scheduled matchup on January 1 was canceled due to COVID-19 safety protocols.
Last year, the Sun Belt moved to division-only play -- while still playing 18 conference games -- so Texas State (west) and South Alabama (east) did not face off in 2020-21.

Going into Wednesday, Texas State and South Alabama will have played one another once in the course of 1,075 days. In the 1,075 days before that (4/4/16-3/15/19), they played five times. The Bobcats were 3-2 in that stretch.
 
LAST TIME OUT FOR TEXAS STATE
Texas State is coming off its second-biggest conference victory of the season, a 68-50 home win over Little Rock on Saturday. The Bobcats led wire-to-wire for the second game in a row and outshot the Trojans 52.3% to 39.6%. Texas State shot over 52% from the field in both the first and second halves.

Mason Harrell led the Bobcats for the second game in a row with 19 points against Little Rock as the senior is averaging 18.0 ppg in the last four contests. Nighael Ceasar was the only other Bobcat in double figures (12), but nine of the 12 Bobcats who logged minutes scored in the 18-point victory.

Texas State moved up to first among Sun Belt teams in the NET Rankings (129th) after Saturday's game. The Bobcats lead Wednesday's opponent South Alabama (134th) for the highest ranked team in the conference. The three non-conference losses for Texas State have been to top 100 teams: Houston (4th), LSU (16th) and Vanderbilt (79th).
 
THE SITUATION
After last week's results, Texas State enters the final week having already clinched a top-three seed for the Sun Belt Basketball Championship in Pensacola, Fla. This means Texas State will not open the tournament until Saturday, March 5.

The Bobcats are atop the Sun Belt standings entering their final two games, and they control their own destiny to clinch the No. 1 seed. They need at least one win in the final two games to capture the regular season championship and be an entrant into the first game on March 5 (11:30 a.m.).

Texas State can clinch the No. 1 seed on Wednesday with a loss as long as both App State (at Little Rock) and Troy (vs. UT Arlington) lose that day as well. The Bobcats own the tiebreaker with App State since they won the matchup on February 3 in San Marcos, 68-66.

If Texas State loses and App State and Troy both win on Wednesday, the seeding will come down to the final day of the regular season.

If App State loses on Wednesday, Texas State will clinch at least a No. 2 seed in the tournament no matter its result on Wednesday.
 
LOVIN' FEBRUARY
They say you should be playing your best basketball at the end of the season. Well, Texas State is doing just that as it is a perfect 6-0 in the month of February.

The Bobcats have won their last 18 games in the month, dating back to 2020. The last time TXST suffered a loss in the month was Feb. 8, 2020 at Appalachian State (60-57). A game which Bobcat legend Nijal Pearson missed due to the birth of his daughter.

Head coach T.J. Johnson has yet to lose a game in the month of February as the leader of Texas State (13-0).

Since 2019, Texas State is 26-3 in the month of February.
 
Year      Record
2019      6-2
2020      7-1
2021      7-0
2022      6-0
Total     26-3
 
TEXAS STATE'S SPOT IN THE SUN
If Texas State wins one of its two games this week, it will be the first time in program history the Bobcats have won back-to-back Sun Belt regular season titles.

The Bobcats, who started playing in the Sun Belt in 2013-14, have gradually improved since that year, going from four wins in 2013-14 to 10+ wins in four straight seasons.

Texas State is the only Sun Belt team with 10+ conference wins in each of the last four years.

In the last six years, Texas State is averaging 10.8 conference wins and has a .637 winning percentage (65-37).

Since they already clinched a top-three spot in the standings, the Bobcats have finished in the top-three of the Sun Belt in five of the last six seasons.
 
TJ + HC + Dubs
Head coach TJ Johnson has 37 career victories at Texas State. HIs total is the 13th most in program history with George Vest (1939-42). Only three coaches have surpasses triple-digit victories in Milton Jowers (287; 1946-61), Vernon McDonald (226; 1961-77) and Danny Kaspar (119; 2013-20).

Johnson's victory total is the second most for a Bobcat head coach in their first two year leading the program. Dan Wall holds the record with 49 wins.
 
Rk          Coach   Years    Wins
1. Milton Jowers   1946-61              287
12. Jim Wooldridge 1991-94              46
13. TJ Johnson         2020-Pres.         37
14. George Vest       1939-42              36
15. O.W. Strahan     1920-24, 44-46  22
 
HARRELL-TRIBUNE
Mason Harrell has scored double digits in the last five games, including a 21-point performance last Thursday against A-State and a 19-point outing on Saturday vs. Little Rock.

The senior guard out of Midwest City, Okla. leads the team with 16.8 ppg in the last five contests. He is also shooting 52.9% from the field and 42.9% from three.
Harrell has added 2.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 1.0 steal in those five games as well.

Harrell, who is tied for second on the team with 16 games of 10+ points, has not scored in double-digits in six straight games since last year when he did it in 13 consecutive games to start the 2020-21 campaign.

In his last game against South Alabama, Harrell scored 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting in 28 minutes on March 3, 2020.
 
TOP FOUR IN THE LAST FIVE
Harrell is not the only Bobcat averaging double figures in scoring in the last five games. He is joined by Isiah Small (13.6), Shelby Adams (11.4) and Caleb Asberry (11.0).

The four Bobcats have combined to score 52.8 of the 73.2 points for Texas State in the five-game stretch (72%).

Small is averaging 5.6 rebounds and 2.4 steals per game to go with his 13.6 points in the last five.
 
WINNING STREAK
Texas State's current seven-game winning streak is one shy of matching its longest such streak this season. The Bobcats won eight straight from Nov. 19 to Dec. 18.

This season is the first time since 1978-79 that Texas State has posted two separate winning streaks of 7+ games. That year, Texas State had a 12-game winning streak and 11-game span.
 
WINNING STREAK, PT. II
However, Texas State's current seven-game winning is its longest against conference opponents in 28 years (since 1993-94).

In 1993-94, the Bobcats won six consecutive games to close out the Southland Conference season with six wins before picking up three wins in the conference tournament.

The last time Texas State won 8+ games against conference opponents in the regular season was 1978-79 when it captured nine straight games against Lone Star Conference opponents.