LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - In exclusive balloting by SCAC men's head basketball coaches, two time defending league champion Trinity University was tabbed as the preseason favorites to capture the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference title in 2013-14.
Trinity University headlined the annual poll of head coaches and is favored to win the SCAC title. Head coach Pat Cunningham and his Tigers earned six of eight first place (coaches could not vote for their own team) votes to go along with 48 points to take the top spot.
Last year's runner up, Colorado College, took the two remaining first place votes for 44 points to finish second. The University of Dallas (35 points) and Southwestern University (28 votes) made up the top half of the poll, finishing third and fourth respectively.
Rounding out the rest of the poll is new SCAC member Schreiner University (26 points), Centenary College (20 points), new SCAC member Texas Lutheran University (13 points), and Austin College (10 points).
Trinity looks for its third straight SCAC championship and the program's eighth title in the SCAC era (since 1991-92). The Tigers won three straight titles from 2002-03 through 2004-05. They also won titles in 1997-98 and 1999-00 and 2011-12. Trinity would be the first SCAC school to win three straight titles since Centre College from 2008-09 to 2010-11.
2013-14 SCAC Men's Basketball Preseason Poll | ||||
|
No. of Votes | 2012-13 SCAC | 2012-13 Overall | |
1. Trinity University |
48 (6) | 12-3 | 20-8 |
|
2. Colorado College | 44 (2) | 11-4 | 16-11 | |
3. University of Dallas | 35 | 8-7 | 14-12 | |
4. Southwestern University |
28 | 6-9 |
11-16 | |
5. Schreiner University* |
26 | N/A | 11-15 | |
6. Centenary College |
20 | 5-10 | 9-15 | |
7. Texas Lutheran University* |
13 | N/A | 8-17 | |
8. Austin College |
10 | 3-12 |
7-20 |
Note: First-place votes (in parentheses) are worth seven points, second place worth six points, on down to 7th-place votes being worth one point. Coaches voted for order of finish 1-7, but did not rank their own team.
*Schreiner and Texas Lutheran competed in the American Southwest Conference last season