HOUSTON- Chris Thomas and Malcolm Riley each scored 23 points as top-seeded Texas Southern cruised past No. 4 seed Prairie View A&M 90-77 Friday night and advanced to the Southwestern Conference tournament championship game, where the Tigers will face Southern.
More importantly, the semifinal-round win allows Texas Southern to claim the conference's automatic berth into the NCAA tournament, regardless of the result of Saturday's conference championship game.
Southern, which beat Alabama State in the other semifinal, is ineligible for the NCAA postseason. It will be the second straight trip to the NCAA tournament for the Tigers, who now have won 11 straight.
Texas Southern built a 12-point lead, 41-29 with three minutes left in the first half. PVAMU subsequently made a run to cut the lead to single digits.
Thomas hit a jumper 11 seconds into the second half and Deverell Biggs knocked down a three pointer and the Tigers pushed the lead back to double digits, where it stayed for the final 18 minutes of regulation.
"We've been playing some really good basketball here lately," said TSU head coach Mike Davis. "The key for us has been our improvement on the defensive end of the floor in addition to the way we've been scoring the ball. We're averaging over 90 points a game in our last four contests and if we can continue to play at this high level we'll give ourselves a chance to compete against any team we may face."
