National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III

Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

Saturday 14th January 2017

Tip Off 18.00

Centenary College Gents 97 University Dallas Crusaders 81,  attendance 327

@ Centenary Gold Dome

Dixie Drive

Shreveport, LA 71104

No admission

Programme free, 4 pages.

Well, it took just about an hour to get here from Marshall, even allowing time to call in and pick up a sandwich at Subway en route. Even then, the game was 14 minutes late getting underway.

The Centenary Golden Dome is impressive from the outside and easy to see where it gets its name from. It was built in 1970 and renovated in 2011. Seated capacity here is 3,000..

Gents top scorers were James Sapp, 27 points from the bench, and KJ Boyd with 21. For Crusaders, both Prince Giadolor and Michael Sarrat scored 15 points. There were 4 lead changes and three ties, and despite leading by 5 points early on, Dallas rarely looked like they could win it.

National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III

American Southwest Conference *

Saturday 14th January 2017

Tip Off 15.00

East Texas Baptist University Tigers 102 Belhaven University Blazers 55,  attendance 414

@ Ornelas Gymnasium

1209, North Grove Street

Marshall, TX 75670

$3 Admission

Programme free, 4 pages.

*Despite this being an American Southwest Conference game, the result does not count towards the league tables or end of season play offs, as Belhaven, from Jackson, Mississippi, have made a recent transition into NCAA Division III, and are therefore not yet eligible to qualify for the tournament, but do play all the teams home and away, as if they were.

They were pretty poor and at one stage looked like they might score the lowest points total of any team I have seen in basketball, but in the end easily made the pathetic 39 points that USF Bulls had managed as my current worst score witnessed. Their only player to reach double figure points was Brandon Pressley, with 14. Not surprisingly, Tigers had six players into double figures, the highest being the 14 points by Dylan Augustine.

It made a welcome change to have the home team band present, something you see more at the American Football games, and them playing the national anthem was far better than the usual warbling that is blurted out by so many of the karaoke type singers, who try and put their own mark on the anthem.

The one bright spot about the game being so one sided, thus avoiding the possibility of overtime, meant that I still had plenty of time to head 41 miles east, into Louisiana, for a second game of the day, despite the game here starting eleven minutes late, even though the women’s game beforehand had already finished when I arrived at 2.40 pm.