For the second consecutive year the Cleveland State women's basketball team goes into the TCCAA/NJCAA Region VII tournament as the No. 2 seed behind mighty Walters State, and last year Dan Lumpkin's Lady Cougars reached the final.
The goal all this season has been to get back there. If indeed they win quarterfinal and semifinal matchups this week at Volunteer State in Gallatin, then they will upgrade that goal, and at 22-5 overall and 15-3 in league play they seem to have the best chance to knock off the undefeated, nationally eighth-ranked Lady Senators.
"To get to that game we have to win two others, and I think our players understand - I've drilled it into them pretty hard - that the most important game of the year is the game you play today," Lumpkin said.
The Lady Cougars open Wednesday at 7 p.m. EST against Jackson State (7-19, 5-13), which they beat twice by double-digit margins in the regular season, but Lumpkin noted that in each case his team pulled away in the fourth quarter.
"They have played us a good game both times, and they have a good team and good athletes," he said. "We want to clean up the game some and be a little more precise offensively and defensively. A much cleaner game is our goal."
Cleveland State's men (11-13, 9-9), coached by Lee Cigliano, are seeded sixth and riding a three-game winning streak into their tournament quarterfinal tonight at 9 EST against Columbia State (19-7, 11-6), whom the Cougars beat 93-84 last Tuesday. The Chargers won their November matchup 82-81.
Chattanooga State's teams, both coached by Jay Price, are seeded fifth. The men play today at 5 against Walters State, against whom they split a pair of three-point games, and the Lady Tigers open at 5 Wednesday against Southwest Tennessee, which beat them twice but by a total of three points.
The tournament started Monday with one women's play-in game and two men's games.
Price's Tigers beat top-seeded Southwest Tennessee, and Cleveland State almost did, and Price said he thinks only three teams have no realistic chance of winning the men's title and going to the national tournament in Hutchinson, Kan.
"The men's tournament is wide open. This could be the best tournament we've had in a while, and we're playing as good as anybody right now," Price said Monday. "We've got the pieces; we've just got to stay focused.
"In the women's Walters is just too good for everybody, I think, but Cleveland has the best shot at beating them, and I voted Dan the coach of the year."
So did other coaches: Lumpkin won that honor, while the Lady Cougars' JLynn Majors and Chattanooga State's Teondra Crawford and Sydney Sims were first-team All-TCCAA selections with Cleveland State freshman Leisa Butler a second-teamer. Sims and Crawford averaged 16.4 and 14.9 points a game for the regular season, while Butler and Majors averaged 11.9 and 10.8. Crawford also averaged five assists.
Price did not discount his Lady Tigers' ability to upset the Lady Senators, but he said Lumpkin's squad could match the 29-0 Morristown team better than the rest in size.
"We can beat Walters, but everything would have to go our way," Price said. "It's all about matchups, and we do better against smaller, quicker teams."
The women's champion this year will go to Lubbock, Texas, for the first year in a three-year deal.
Cleveland State's Darrion Leslie and Chattanooga State's DaV Moore were first-team men's All-TCCAA picks, with the Tigers' Larry Spicer making the second team. Leslie finished fifth in the league in scoring with 18.3 points a game, and Moore and Tigers teammates Brandon Shingles, Develyn Williams and Spicer averaged 14.3, 14.1, 14.0 and 12.2 with the Cougars' Lawrence Castor averaging 10.8.
Moore and Leslie averaged 9.1 and 8.9 rebounds.
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.