TXST men’s basketball is on a six game win streak heading into their matchup against South Alabama, and has shown the conference why they should be heavily studied come the ‘tournament month’ of March.
Sitting in the upper middle pack of the conference with a 17-11 record, the Bobcats are getting hot at the right time, similar to previous seasons. One key factor looking into their success is not only the players playing well, but the history of the Bobcats in the month of February.
According to ESPN, the Bobcats after the win against ULM, are now 45-17 in the month of February since the 2018-2019 season. They happen to be one of 14 D1 teams that has 43 wins or more. A very achieving stat for head coach Terrence Johnson’s team as they are one of the most dangerous teams in all of college basketball in the entire month of February.
Not only are they historically good in February but referring to this season only, the team holds the best home record in the conference and one of the best in the entire country. With a 15-1 home game record, the Bobcats are ranked in the top 25 in all of college basketball.
The philosophy for coach Johnson though is taking it one game at a time which has proven success so far this season.
“We’re a 1-0 team and our goal is to go 1-0, ” Johnson said. “This was the absolute most important game of our season thus far, and the next one is the most important game of our season moving forward.”
However, the team feels it hasn’t even peaked this season yet despite being winners of five straight. With the Sun Belt Conference being such a cut-throat and competitive conference, Johnson doesn’t seem to be satisfied just yet.
“We need to control the controllables, go 1-0, put ourselves in the top four and let the dust settle amongst everybody else,” Johnson said. “We think that we’re moving up, we’re trending, we haven’t peaked and we can be a force to be reckoned with if we continue to chip away at this thing.”
The Bobcats have three more games left in the regular season split evenly between home and away games. The team is in a prime spot to control its own destiny with two out of those four games against the top teams in the conference.
In its last season in the SBC, Texas State has the chance to shock the country and do something they haven’t done since joining the Sun Belt, win out and punch a ticket to the March Madness tournament.
The Bobcats will return to the court against South Alabama, looking for their seventh straight win, Thursday, Feb. 19, at 7 p.m. at the Mitchell Center in Mobile, Ala. The game will be able to stream on ESPN+.
