Texas Southern’s women split the SWAC regular season crown with Southern, but they won’t get to fight for the SWAC Tourney title.
TSU AD Charles McClelland release a statement announcing the school would keep its team out of the SWAC Tourney following the March 7th brawl with rival Southern University.
Here’s what Dr. McClelland had to say:
- “After deliberate consultation and review with our conference office regarding the incident that transpired on March 7, 2015, we’ve come to the decision that our women’s basketball team will not participate in the upcoming 2015 SWAC Women’s Basketball Tournament, as we would not be able to successfully field a competitive team due to the number of suspensions that are set to be levied down. In addition to the multi-game suspensions handed down from our league office, we will also be imposing some additional measures to ensure that our student-athletes fully understand the severity of what took place on Saturday. With that being said, we’re not going to throw in the towel or give up on these young ladies. As an athletic program and more importantly as an institution of higher learning, it is our task to work with the student-athletes involved in the altercation by helping them learn and grow from this incident as individuals. We will mandate that they attend conflict resolution counseling, while also requiring them to perform community service hours. After speaking with the team they’ve all expressed a deep remorse for the actions that took place on March 7. They’ve sought to apologize to Texas Southern University President Dr. John Rudley, myself, their coaching staff and the entire Texas Southern Community as a whole for the various roles they played in the incident. At that time, I also shared with them that we will have a zero tolerance policy moving forward for such actions. “