SWAC Vote on Members' Ban from SWAC Tourny

[aggiejazz]

Duer Sharp speaks, the blog listens

With the SWAC’s annual meetings set to begin tomorrow in Houston, we give you some oh-so interesting nuggets from a conversation we had with league commissioner Duer Sharp (we’ll have this in story form in Tuesday’s Clarion-Ledger).


Duer Sharp has a bevy of things to discuss with folks at the SWAC meetings.

First, let’s get to the Academic Progress Rate stuff …

• Sharp said there will “definitely” be a vote by league presidents whether to ban or not to ban Jackson State and Southern University from the SWAC football championship game. The two teams suffered postseason bans from the NCAA, but that does not include the title game, which the SWAC plays instead of the NCAA playoffs.

• Asked if he had an opinion concerning the possible football championship game bans, Sharp said, “I really don’t have an opinion. We work for the member institutions. We work for the schools.”

• There will also be a vote by presidents on whether to ban Grambling and Southern from the SWAC basketball tournament. Those two teams suffered postseason bans for low APR. With the SWAC Tournament champion receiving an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament, it’s likely the two will be banned from the SWAC Tournament. Said Sharp: “If we allow them into the (SWAC) tournament and they win, we would forfeit our automatic qualifier.”

• Both of these ground-breaking votes are likely to come Thursday, when presidents and chancellors are set to meet from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

And, now, to other topics — the first that should more than pique your interest — that Sharp expects to arise at the meetings …

• Sharp would like to send out bids for the location of the SWAC football championship game. The game is in the final year of a contract with Birmingham’s Legion Field. A central location in the conference and a city that could accommodate thousands of travelers, Jackson seems a natural fit. JSU takes ownership of MS Veterans Memorial Stadium July 1, so it would be up to the school to bid. Since it was awarded ownership of the stadium, the university has preached of trying to get more events into the stadium. Here’s one opportunity.

• You might recall that the SEC did something similar recently, sending out bids for the league’s baseball tournament. The final two remaining bids were current location Hoover and Memphis. The league ultimately chose to return to Hoover.

• Sharp would like to expand the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to include all 10 teams instead of just the top eight. But that may not happen this year because of the aforementioned postseason bans for Grambling and Southern.

• In another attempt to “grow” the SWAC basketball tournaments, Sharp says, he wants to make it mandatory that schools’ bring their cheerleaders, band and dance team to the event. Sharp said last year’s basketball tournaments set records in attendance. The event is in the second year of a three-year contract in Garland, Texas.

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[DECKS]

The SWAC Championship game will suffer in attendance if they ban JSU and SU. Of course if they ban teams from the basketball tourney then they have no choice but to do the same for football. This is a huge blow for the SWAC.

[Aggie77]

In football it doesn't have an impact so, I don't think they will vote for the ban. Obviously that will send a contradictory message, but football is King.

I'm not in favor of expanding the basketball tourney field. I like the top eight concept and wish we would do it. It makes the regular season more important, reduces the chances of the season's bottom-feeders making a tourney run, theoretically the basketball should be better, the expense of the tourney goes down (less days), compressing the schedule would allow more people to think of it as a three day weekend instead of a week's vacation.

[aggiejazz]

League presidents voted Thursday to ban Jackson State and Southern University from this year’s Southwestern Athletic Conference football championship game, voicing their displeasure in the poor academic standing of two of the conference’s most successful and followed football programs.

Voting details were not released, but a source says the vote to ban was unanimous. It’s not clear how many presidents abstained from the vote.

SWAC athletic directors and senior women administrators voted 8-2 Wednesday to ban JSU and Southern from the title game.

UPDATES: JSU president Carolyn Meyers released this terse statement late Thursday night: “JSU is disappointed in the decision of the SWAC to uphold the NCAA ban on postseason play due to our low APR. We wish this injuction would be applied across the board to all schools with low APR rather than selectly to those who have higher grduation rates of the general student population. We remain committed to the timely graduation of all our students and students athletes included. This is a regrettable decision.”

The presidents’ vote conforms with the NCAA’s ruling three weeks ago.


Even with a perfect record, Rick Comegy and Jackson State won't be holding the SWAC championship trophy this year.
The NCAA banned the two football programs from the postseason for low Academic Progress Rates, a rolling, four-year figure that measures academic performance.

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