Kennerson, TSU repeat as SWAC champs
Published 9:50 pm Saturday, March 4, 2017
- Joyce Kennerson of Texas Southern, from Port Arthur, poses with the SWAC regular-season basketball championship trophy. (Courtesy of Anthony Kennerson)
HOUSTON — If regular-season championships could get a team into the NCAA basketball tournament, Texas Southern would go to a second straight March Madness.
Still, winning two straight Southwestern Athletic Conference regular-season titles is nice for Joyce Kennerson and Texas Southern.
Kennerson, the standout sophomore point guard from Port Arthur, had 16 points and made three steals Saturday in the Tigers’ 58-46 home win over Southern. That earned Texas Southern (20-9, 14-4) a share of the SWAC title with Grambling State, which split the season series with the Tigers, and its first 20-win regular season since 1981-82.
Two days earlier, Kennerson scored a career-high 30 points in the Tigers’ 64-45 win at home over Alcorn State. Kennerson played the entire 40 minutes in six of the past seven games, sitting out one minute against Alabama A&M on Feb. 27.
Texas Southern can earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament by winning the SWAC tourney. The Tigers, seeded second, will host No. 7 and archrival Prairie View A&M on Tuesday for a spot in Friday’s semifinals. TSU bowed out in the semifinals last year.
The semifinals and championship rounds are March 10-11 at the Toyota Center in Houston. The first round is played at the sites of the higher-seeded teams, with only eight of the 10 teams qualifying.
About I.C. Murrell
I.C. Murrell was promoted to editor of The News, effective Oct. 14, 2019. He previously served as sports editor since August 2015 and has won or shared eight first-place awards from state newspaper associations and corporations. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, grew up mostly in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and graduated from the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
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