The Southwestern Athletic Conference has made significant changes to the SWAC basketball tournament, which will begin in the 2026-2027 season. Per a statement by the conference, the tournament will feature only the top ten teams in the men’s and women’s tournaments, with the top two seeds receiving a bye in the first round.
The third and fourth seeds will advance to the quarterfinal round, and the fifth and sixth seeds will advance into the second round. The tournament will start with an opening-round game between the eighth and ninth seeds and the seventh and tenth seeds. The new changes come after the tournament was expanded to 12 teams.
The conference says in the statement that it will evaluate ways to further grow the SWAC basketball brand and is assessing various options.
“The SWAC Men’s and Women’s Basketball working group will continue to assess the overall viability, growth opportunities and long-term sustainability of basketball across the conference while evaluating additional enhancements to the championship experience. Additional information regarding tournament dates, game times and ticketing details will be announced at a later date.”
Last year’s SWAC women’s basketball tournament saw Southern University emerge victorious, as they won back-to-back conference championships and once again advanced to the NCAA March Madness Tournament. Meanwhile, in the men’s tournament, Prairie View A&M continued the run of athletic dominance that Tremaine Jackson and the Panther football team instituted in the fall and won the conference championship. They’ve been advanced to the First Four and beat Lehigh to advance to play the defending national champion in Florida in the first round of the March Madness tournament.
The post SWAC makes huge change to basketball tournament appeared first on ClutchPoints.
