WT Basketball Teams Land NCAA Tournament Berths – Sports Headlines
Despite losses in the Lone Star Conference Tournament last week, both West Texas A&M basketball teams have made the NCAA Playoffs.
The Lady Buffs will be the 4th seed in the South Central Region Tournament in Pueblo, Colorado and will take on 5th seed Regis University in the first round this Friday at a time to be determined.
The WT men's team will head to Golden, Colorado as the 3rd seed in the 8-team field and will meet Lone Star Conference rival Texas A&M-Commerce, which is the 6th seed. That game will be on Saturday with the exact time to be announced.
-- Texas Panhandle girls basketball teams returned home from the UIL State Tournament in San Antonio with plenty of gold medals. Four teams won state championships on Saturday with Canyon in 5A, Canadian in 3A, Panhandle in 2A and Nazareth in 1A all winning their respective classes.
-- A couple of are boys teams will head to San Antonio later this week for the state tournament. Clarendon in 2A and Happy in 1A both won regionl tournaments on Saturday to claim berths in the final four. Happy will start things off on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. against Borden County in the 1A semifinals. Clarendon will take the court on Friday morning at 10 a.m. against Thorndale in the 2A semifinals.
-- The West Texas A&M baseball team had a successful weekend in Stephenville against Tarleton State in Lone Star Conference play. The Buffs won three of four games against the Texans, including yesterday's 13-4 win. WT junior Luis Amaro went six for six with five RBI and two runs scored in the win.
The #6 Lady Buffs softball team had a tougher time against Tarleton but managed to salvage the final game of the 3-game series yesterday with a 5-4 win. WT used a great outing in the circle by Shayne Starkey and a sixth inning solo home run with two outs by sophomore Brittany Cruz to improve to 4-2 in LSC play.
-- The Amarillo Bulls lost two of three games over the weekend to the first-place Wichita Falls Wildcats. Amarillo dropped Friday's contest 3-2 but bounced back on Saturday to take a 6-3 win before losing Sunday's finale 3-2.
-- For the first time in Big 12 history, three schools have captured all of the major men's basketball postseason awards. Frank Mason III (Player of the Year), Bill Self (Coach) and Josh Jackson (Freshman) of Kansas have been recognized, with West Virginia's Jevon Carter (Defensive Player) and Tarik Phillip (Sixth Man) also earning honors. Manu Lecomte of Baylor is the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year.
-- West Virginia and Baylor will meet for the Big 12 women's basketball tournament title Monday night. Baylor rolled past Kansas State 88-71 while West Virginia knocked off Texas 62-59 in the semifinals.
- Seth Curry scored 22 points and Dirk Nowitzki had 18 points and 12 rebounds as the Dallas Mavericks beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 104-89 Sunday night. Russell Westbrook scored 29 for the Thunder after scoring more than 40 in each of his last four games.