SWAC Basketball Tournament: Prairie View A&M, Texas Southern headline

By Bryan Mauro | Mar 10, 2019

LAS VEGAS, NV - NOVEMBER 20: Gary Blackston #3 of the Prairie View A&M Panthers shoots against Cameron Carmical #23 of the Eastern Kentucky Colonels during day one of the Main Event basketball tournament at T-Mobile Arena on November 20, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Sam Wasson/Getty Images) /

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MADISON, WI – NOVEMBER 27: Head coach Byron Rimm II of the Prairie View A&M Panthers watches the game from the bench in the first half against the Wisconsin Badgers at the Kohl Center on November 27, 2016 in Madison, Wisconsin. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images) /

When the SWAC basketball tournament gets underway, two teams will enter as the favorite. Which one of the two dominant teams will take home the crown?

Birmingham, Alabama is the site of the SWAC basketball conference tournament. During these few days, fans are going to be treated to great basketball, featuring some of the games most unknown stars. The conference has some of the most prolific scorers in the entire country. The problem lies with the schools in the conference having a low budget for sports. The schools in this conference must play top power-5 schools, or buy games as some call them.

The SWAC is made up of entirely Historical Black Colleges and many of them do not have a huge basketball budget, especially not to play a bunch of home games in the non-conference. Due to the schools having to play a tremendous amount of buy games, the records of these schools often do not look great heading into the tournament.

The conference has played out an interesting way. There are a few teams like Arkansas Pine Bluff and Grambling State who have underachieved given their expectations for conference finish. Texas Southern is right where people figured they would be. The Prairie View A&M Panthers are the one team who has surprised everyone but themselves. The tournament is going to be a fun few days, especially for fans who love mid-major basketball.

The top two teams are better than the rest of the field. The middle is bunched together, but the middle is also good enough to beat one of the top seeds if they are not on their game. The SWAC teams won’t beat a top seed, but the top two teams in this league do have a chance to make a game interesting for a while. This could be a tournament full of upsets in the first couple days of the tournament. That always makes conference tournaments exciting.