By Cody Stark
Assistant Sports Editor
KATY — The Bearkats were on a mission and Stephen F. Austin got caught in the fury.
Sam Houston State bombed the Lumberjacks in the first half and ran away with its first Southland Conference tournament championship in seven years with a commanding 64-48 victory at the Merrell Center on Saturday afternoon.
Junior forward Gilberto Clavell was a monster in the paint, scoring a game-high 21 points. Senior Corey Allmond drilled three 3-pointers to finish with 19 points and senior Ashton Mitchell chipped in 13 with six assists.
As the final seconds ticked off the clock, Mitchell was grinning from ear to ear and threw the ball into the air as the Bearkats (25-7) celebrated their latest triumph. The regular-season SLC champions are going back to the Big Dance and will find out their seeding, destination and opponent when the NCAA College Basketball Tournament selection show airs live on CBS at 5 p.m. today.
“It was a relief to finally win it,” said Mitchell, who was selected as the tournament’s most valuable player. “It’s what we’ve been working for all year and of course it’s what I’ve been working four years for. I’m just glad we finally got the job done.”
The Bearkats have suffered early exits from the SLC tournament the previous three years, but after fighting off two potiental upsets in the first two rounds, they took out their frustrations on SFA on Saturday.
Clavell scored the first basket of the game and Allmond followed with a 3 to give Sam Houston the lead for good at 5-0. The Bearkats kept pouring it on and turned the contest into a runaway midway through the first half.
A pair of treys from Mitchell and Allmond on consecutive possessions put Sam Houston up 21-9 with 10:56 left before halftime. The Bearkats never led by less than double digits the rest of the way.
SHSU junior Josten Crow only scored three points, but he completely shut down SFA’s top scorer Eddie Williams, who finished with five points. Senior forward Preston Brown gobbled up a game-high eight boards as the Bearkats outrebounded the Lumberjacks 36-28.
It was the type of tournament it has been for the Bearkats. Everybody stepped up in one way or another over the past four days and that is why Sam Houston is making its second appearance in the NCAA tournament in school history.
“Josten is the glue to our team and these guys (Mitchell, Allmond and Clavell) will tell you that,” Bearkats head coach Bob Marlin said. “That is what is neat about this group. Everybody has a roll. Ashton makes us go, Corey shoots the ball, Gilberto has been the difference on the inside scoring, Preston stretched the defense shooting and I thought he was outstanding rebounding the ball.
“Lance (Pevehouse) is our energy guy off the bench and he helped get us here the past two games. Drae Murray, Antuan Bootle, everyone. Arthur Zulu and Marco Cooper played good in this tournament. Everyone contributed.”
Sam Houston took a 35-19 lead into the break, but sooner or later SFA (23-9) was going to make a run. The Lumberjacks cut the lead to 12 four times in the second half, the final coming on a basket by center Jereal Scott, who scored a team-high 13 points, with 4:34 remaining.
But the Bearkats kept stretching out the lead thanks to a dominating defensive effort. Sam Houston held SFA to only 31 percent shooting from the field.
The shots that helped the defending SLC champs get back to the tournament title game with easy wins over Texas-Arlington and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi were not falling for the Lumberjacks on Saturday.
“I thought Sam Houston played particularly well, especially in the first half,” SFA head coach Danny Kaspar said. “We talked about them delivering an early knockout punch and they were successful in doing that. Our shooting tonight from the perimeter was not very good. We were 8-of-23 (from the floor in the second half) and I think that tells the story. When you play a team like Sam Houston State it makes it almost impossible to win.”
Game notes
2-0 — With Saturday’s 64-48 victory over Stephen F. Austin, the Bearkats improved to 2-0 against their archrivals in the championship game of the Southland Conference tournament.
In 2003, senior Donald Cole drilled a 3-pointer with 13 seconds left in overtime to lift Sam Houston State to a 69-66 victory in the title game at Johnson Coliseum. The win wrapped up the Kats’ first-ever berth to the NCAA tournament.
What a week — Five players were honored for spectacular performances at the Southland Conference tournament this week. Sam Houston State senior point guard Ashton Mitchell was named the most valuable player. Bearkats junior forward Gilberto Clavell, Nicholls forward Anatoly Bose, Stephen F. Austin guard Eddie Williams and center Jereal Scott were named to the all-tournament team.
