ASU will open play against Alcorn State Thursday, March 13 at 12:30 p.m.  All tournament games are being played at the Toyota Center located in Houston.
 
Alabama State (18-11) enters the tournament as the three seed while the Alcorn State (12-18) enters the tournament as the sixth seed.
 
The Hornets were fortunate to win both games between the two teams this season with a 58-54 road win back on Jan.25, and another slim 92-86 win at home on Feb. 22.
 
"You have to win three games to win the championship, but we are going to go out and focus on playing a good game against Alcorn," Head Coach Lewis Jackson said.  "We've won three in a row on a couple of different occasions so we have proved we can do that.  All we need to do is get that first win out of the way and then you start to feel good about yourself."
 
The two games were exactly opposite as both teams had trouble scoring in Lorman back in January and ASU had to outscore the Braves in Montgomery in late February.  The first game may be more the norm as Alcorn has the second best scoring defense in the SWAC only allowing 67.9 points per game.
 
For most of the season the Hornets occupied that second spot in the conference in points per game allowed, but a lapse on the defensive end of the season the second half of the season has dropped them to fifth allowing 70.0 points per game.
 
"We've been one of the top defensive teams in the conference however we had given up 86 points per game prior to our last two wins," Jackson said.  "Our defense seems to come and go so we have to go out and play solid defense."
 
Finishing the season tied for second in the conference is a far cry from where the Hornets were picked by the conference coaches back during the fall's preseason poll.
 
"My hats are off to these guys to be picked seventh and to finish second in the league shows they have been doing a pretty good job," Jackson said.
 
LeAntwan Luckett leads the Braves in scoring averaging 15.1 points per game, but he has plenty of help from teammate Ocatvius Brown who averages 12.6 points and leads Alcorn in rebounding averaging 6.7 per game.
 
ASU continues to be led by Jamel Waters who scores at a 14.2 points per game clip and DeMarcus Robinson averages 11.9.  Maurice Strong leads ASU averaging 6.6 rebounds per game and Brandon Graham averages 5.0.
 
Waters continues to be not only the team, but the SWAC leader in assists and enters the tournament with 179 assists.  He also has 54 steals and is shooting .784 from the free throw line.
 
The game can be heard live on WVAS FM 90.7.  Check with bamastatesports.com to check the links to the live stats the SWAC will make available during the game.
 
-Hornets-