Bobcats to play in NCAA tourney

On March 7, the GCSU men’s basketball team received an at-large bid to the NCAA Southeast Regional Tournament in Augusta, extending their postseason after their bid for a Peach Belt Conference championship came to an end March 3.

Despite recently being named No. 3 in the NCAA Southeast Region rankings and No. 14 in the nation, the Bobcats suffered a disappointing loss against Clayton State in the first round of the PBC Championship tournament.

“I think that kind of woke all of us up, players and coaches, to realize we’ve got to get back to work,” head coach Terry Sellers said. “It gave us time to get back to the basics, kind of start practicing and doing the things that we did earlier in the season to have the kind of season that we had.”

The Bobcats have compiled an impressive 22-5 record overall, and a 15-2 conference record. This is the 11th time in school history that the men’s basketball team has reached 20 wins in a season and the eighth time under Sellers.

“I think just the combination of good young men and high-character guys that really have worked well together all year (have helped us do so well),” Sellers said. “I think also our team chemistry and our teamwork. The guys have just done a good job all season.”

The team also set a new school record for their best PBC start with 11 straight conference wins, beating its previous record of 8-0.

“I’m very proud of our guys for accomplishing that because it’s a very tough conference and that’s not an easy thing to do,” Sellers said. “Those first 11 games, if you could’ve given me 8-3, I would’ve thought, ‘Man, that’s pretty good.’ But they kind of exceeded maybe even what I thought they could do.”

At home, the Bobcats had a solid record of 10-2.

“When the crowd gets into the game and you get the momentum going, the other team kind of shuts down a little bit,” senior point guard Ty Rowland said. “Another thing is, we had a goal before the year started that we were going to go undefeated at home, so a home game is really important to us . and to go with such a good home record is a good thing for us.”

Rowland and senior guard Graham Martin have both been named to All-PBC teams. Rowland was named to the third team with an average of 5.2 assists per contest, fourth in the league. Martin, who averaged 15.6 points per game and is the fifth leading scorer in the league, was named to the first team.

“I’m really proud of myself. It’s been kind of one of my goals,” Martin said. “I’ve wanted to make it since sophomore year and it’s kind of eluded me every year, so to finally make it, it’s like a weight off my shoulders.”

GCSU will play USC Aiken tomorrow at noon. If they advance, they could face a matchup with another PBC opponent, a red-hot Montevallo squad that knocked off previous No. 1 Augusta State in the PBC tournament, on Sunday at 5 p.m.

“(We’ve had) five days to really work on things that we need to improve at this time, so it’s more just working on ourselves and staying in shape and kind of sharpening up things as opposed to focusing on our opponent,” Martin said.

The Bobcats are determined to make some noise in the upcoming tournament.

“We decided at the beginning of the year to not only make it to the tournament, but to make it and advance,” Sellers said. “This team’s been determined all year to make it and not just be happy to be there, but to do something when we get there. So hopefully they’ll be in a good frame of mind and ready to go.”

Posted by Courtney Kelly on Mar 12 2010. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry