The SWAC conference basketball tournament tips off on Wednesday. One lucky team in the 12-team conference will punch a ticket to March Madness, though just eight teams qualify for the conference tournament. We’ll take a look at all of the pertinent SWAC tournament odds and how you can watch.
This conference sets up as Grambling State’s to lose, according to the markets. While they aren’t quite favored over the field, they aren’t too far from even money.
SWAC Tournament Odds
Tournament Notes
Conference basketball tournaments don’t come in much more simple form than that of the SWAC. Eight teams, no byes in the SWAC bracket. Every team starts in the quarterfinals, with the wheat already separated from the chaff by regular season results.
Grambling State appears the clear-cut team to beat despite drawing the No. 2 seed. The Tigers closed the regular season on a nine-game winning streak. But, prior to that, they dropped a home game 63-60 to Alcorn State, which wound up giving Alcorn the top seed via tiebreaker, as both teams finished 15-3 in conference.
Despite the parity between the two teams, KenPom’s adjusted efficiency numbers paint as clear a picture as the market: Grambling State is the class of the conference. The Tigers are the only team close to neutral in adjusted efficiency — just on the wrong side of zero.
Alcorn State sits more than 60 spots lower — with Southern and Prairie View A&M not far behind them.
As such, those are the only four teams with better than +1000 odds to win the tournament. Third-seeded Jackson State looks like a paper tiger — further clearing a friendly path for Grambling.
Additionally, both Grambling and Alcorn got the benefit of March 8 first-round games. That means each gets a day of rest before playing in the quarterfinals. On the flip side, teams like Southern and Prairie View must grind through three straight days of basketball.
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SWAC Tournament Schedule
- Quarterfinals: Wednesday, March 8/Thursday, March 9
- Semifinals: Friday, March 10
- SWAC Championship: Saturday, March 11
How To Watch
The first two rounds will all be available for viewing on the ESPN+ streaming platform. On March 11, viewers can catch the SWAC championship live on ESPNU/ESPN+ at 5:30 p.m. ET.
Here is the rest of the conference tournament schedule and a video breakdown of select conference tournaments.
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