Worst Team In NCAA Tournament Set To Face Shortest Lineup In College Basketball As Legendary Dancing Mascot Returns
Texas Southern basketball is the worst team to make March Madness this season. The Tigers got hot at the right time to set up the strangest matchup of the entire NCAA Tournament, and mark the return of the best dancing mascot in the country!
Texas Southern, which had just nine Division-I wins in 2022/23, finished the regular season at 11-20. It somehow beat Arizona State back in November, but got obliterated by Oral Roberts, Houston, Auburn and Kansas in four of its next five games.
Two of its wins included Huston-Tillotson and North American. Who? Exactly.
The Tigers were abysmal during the regular season. However, in the SWAC, regular season records ultimately do not matter. The team that wins the conference tournament is going to get the only bid from the conference. All it takes is three-straight wins in three/four days.
Texas Southern, the lowest seed to make the SWAC Tournament, beat top seed Alcorn State in the Quarterfinals and No. 5 Alabama A&M in the Semifinals to reach the Championship. And after going up 31-18 in the first half, it held off No. 2-seed Grambling State to clinch its third-straight SWAC title and an NCAA Tournament bid.
By winning on Saturday, the Tigers will compete in the First Four play-in games as a potential No. 16 seed. They are the worst team in the entire field, and will likely face the shortest team in the country.
Fairleigh Dickinson, the only other team to make March Madness with a NET ranking of 300 or higher is set to face Texas Southern. The Knights have an average height of just over 6-foot-1, with its backcourt anchored by guards that stand 5-foot-8 and 5-foot-9.
They will presumably play the Tigers for a chance to become the first-ever No.1 seed to take down a No. 1 seed from the play-in games. It will be an interesting matchup, to say the least!
With the return of Texas Southern also comes the return of its electrifying mascot. He famously put the Kansas Jayhawk to shame during the First Round of last year's Big Dance.
The dancing has not stopped a year later. The Texas Southern Tiger was turning up all week in Birmingham!
Should Fairleigh Dickinson send its mascot to The Big Dance, it better be prepared for the Texas Southern Tiger. Otherwise, history will repeat and Nitro the Knight will next be on the losing end of a viral dance battle!