Last night, SMU clinched a share of the AAC title, smoking Tulsa at Moody Coliseum, 93-70. On Saturday, the Mustangs can clinch the title outright, when they play Memphis at Moody in their home finale. A few notes for my fellow SMU bandwagon fans and to those looking to finally make a low-pressure commitment:
• The win gives the team 26 on the year, the fourth-highest win total in school history, and the most in the regular season.
SMU’s 26 wins are tied for fourth-most in a single-season. The mark is a regular-season program best! #PonyUp #MoodyMagic pic.twitter.com/iLg6qzBov6
— SMU Basketball (@SMUBasketball) March 3, 2017
Figure on them taking the top spot before this is all over.
• This is a super-fun team that does stuff like this on a regular basis.
• The guy finishing off that play I linked to is Semi Ojeleye. (Full name: Jesusemilore Talodabijesu Ojeleye, pronounced OH-juh-lay.) If you know nothing else about SMU basketball, know him. He’s a former top-40 recruit who started out at Duke before coming to the Hilltop.
This profile from Sports Illustrated fills in the rest. A relevant quote from SMU coach Tim Jankovich from that profile:
“Every single day that you come [to the gym], he’s in there,” Jankovich says. “I mean, he’s like a machine. Sometimes we try to get him out of there because we’d rather have him resting. But he’s so passionate that you can set your clock on him.”
• Going into the NCAA Tournament, ESPN has the Ponies as a No. 5 seed, SI has them as a No. 6, and Bleacher Report also is predicting a No. 5 spot (in a game that would match them up with UT-Arlington!).
