The Lions basketball team lost to Lamar 77-65 in the first round of the Southland Conference Tournament. The loss on Mar. 8 eliminated the Lions from any chance of making the NCAA Tournament.

“Very hard fought game,” said Head Coach Jay Ladner. “Final score certainly does not show the closeness of the game. At the fourteen-minute mark of the game, we were up by five and then Marlain Veal picked up his fourth foul. I’m not going to debate the quality of the call, but it was certainly a questionable call. That forced us to take him out and that was the turning point of the game.”

The Cardinals outscored the Lions off the bench 44-22, shooting 47.9 percent from the field.

“That was an incredible effort by their bench team. I thought we did an outstanding job in defending their All-conference player Colton Weisbrod, and we held him to only eight points. Our defensive game plan was strong for most of the game, but in the end, it came down to it. Those guys made some critical shots. You got to give those guys credit.”

The Lions faced injuries to three key players early in the season that made the road to the Southland Conference Tournament even tougher. Senior guards Keith Charleston and Joshua Filmore never got to play this season and forward Jordan Capps was injured in the game against Tulane on Nov. 14. 

Ladner expressed his content with the team despite the injuries of three starters. After finishing with their best record since 2010-2011, he explained that the other members of the team need to step up and play better roles in order for them to make it to the conference tournament.

 “It gives us a lot of positive momentum going into next season,” said Ladner. “We were very difficult to beat at home and some of our losses were only a few possessions away. We will learn from those experiences and tighten up the little things for next year, and we will be able to compete for the conference championship.”

The success the team has had with injuries to three of the four seniors on the team begs the question of how far the Lions would have gone had they stayed healthy all season.

“The fact that the injured players were all players with such significant experience,” said Ladner. “Jordan Capps gives us a much stronger presence inside. Keith Charleston gives us a long forward and Joshua Filmore will go down as one of the best player to ever play at Southeastern before it’s set and done. Considering we accomplished so much without those guys, it really does make you wonder, ‘Hey what if we had our whole team?’ But the other part of it is those three guys will be able to come back next year. Hopefully they come back in the fold healthy. In fact, they are already making progress in their recovery.”

Technically, the season is not over for the Lions since they have been invited to play in the College Basketball Invitational and the College Insider Tournament.

“Both of them reached out to us Thursday morning to extend the invitation,” said Ladner. “It is exciting to have other people recognize what we have accomplished this year. This is only the second time since the automatic bid to the 2005 NCAA Tournament that the men’s basketball program has received an invitation for postseason play.”