| Southland Conference Finals Recap | |||
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Recap by Paul Oren No.3 Texas San-Antonio 74 No.4 Stephen F Austin 70 Southland Conference Player of the Year Leroy Hurd has consistently carried the Texas San-Antonio Roadrunners on his back throughout the season, and in their biggest of the season, the trend continued. Hurd scored 23 points including two free throws with 17 seconds left to ice the Southland Tournament Championship for UTSA and send the Roadrunners back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1999. UTSA won their three tournament games by a combined 11 points and closed out the tournament on a 7-game winning streak and winners of 10 of their last 11. “To be able to close out the Tournament in this fashion is a dream come true,” said UTSA coach Tim Carter. “I’m so proud of the effort of these players this season. There has been a lot of sacrifice by players and coaches on this team to help make it successful, and it has paid off. We are going to enjoy this for a couple of days and then start getting ready for next week.” The Roadrunners started the season at 5-10 before rallying in conference play to win 14 of their last 17 games and a big part of that was balance. Hurd was simply amazing in the title game. Along with his 23 points, he grabbed 9 rebounds, dished out 3 assists and had 2 steals. For his efforts, Hurd was named Tournament MVP. He was joined on the All-Tournament team by teammates Justin Harbert and Kurt Attaway. Attaway, the freshman, scored a career-high 24 points in the Roadrunners semi-final victory over Southeastern Louisiana “This is unbelievable,” said Hurd. “I’m proud of how the team came together late in the year to make this happen. When we stood at 5-10 earlier this season a lot of people counted us out. We hung together and got it done.” SFA finishes the season at 21-9 and for the second year in a row, they come up short in the Championship game. Marcus Clark and Hank Rivers led the Lumberjacks with 16 points while semi-final hero Antonio Burks added 12. UTSA appears headed to the NCAA Tournament Play-In game. According to CollegeRPI.com, the Roadrunners have an RPI of 236. They have a 19-13 record, but 3 of those wins have come against Non-Division 1 programs. Against projected 2004 NCAA Tournament teams, UTSA lost by 26 to Illinois-Chicago and by 30 to Oklahoma St. UTSA has played in three overtime games this season and one double overtime contest.
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