WEATHERFORD, Okla. – SWOSU Men's Basketball finds themselves on the outside of the GAC postseason landscape looking in with four games remaining in the regular season – sitting tied for ninth and one game out from the important No. 8 spot that qualifies for the conference tournament.
The Dawgs, who are 7-11 in GAC play, can help themselves by winning games. Three of the final four opponents SWOSU will face are against teams they have already beaten this year. The kicker to that, is they'll have to travel to all three of those teams and earn road victories this time around. SWOSU is 2-7 on the road this season.
This week features road games against Harding and Arkansas Tech. SWOSU picked up a 96-87 win over the Bisons on January 28 and earned a 79-71 overtime win over Arkansas Tech two days prior on January 26.
The trio of SWOSU, Harding, and Tech are all three suffering more defeats than wins as of late. The Bulldogs have lost four of their last five after a heartbreaking overtime loss to Northwestern this past rivalry Monday after turning the ball over a season high 24 times. Harding just snapped an 11-game losing streak on Monday with a win against, ironically, Arkansas Tech. Since losing to the Dawgs, Tech has lost six of their last seven games.
Dating back to the start of the GAC, SWOSU is 9-12 against Harding which includes a 4-6 mark when playing in Searcy. Against Tech, The Bulldogs have won the last four matchups but are 6-18 overall and 1-9 in Russellville against the Wonder Boys during the GAC era.
Senior point guard Kamden Gipson is coming off a career game and a career milestone against Northwestern. He scored 30 points, his highest single-game total in five years at SWOSU, and eclipsed the 1,305 career points mark which put him atop the record book in the program's D2 era.
Both Ben Smith and Chris Braggs, Jr. had career scoring games the last time they played Harding and Tech. Smith finished with 28 points on 12-of-20 (60%) shooting against HU and Braggs followed that up with 30 points against ATU where he shot 13-of-16 from the foul line.
SWOSU's lone overtime victory came against the Wonder Boys earlier this season. They are 1-3 this year when the game goes past regulation after suffering the latest 91-81 loss to Northwestern.
After this week, the Dawgs will battle East Central (Feb. 23) on the road before closing the regular season out against Southern Nazarene (Feb. 25) on Senior Day at home.
