HAMMOND, La. – The Southeastern Louisiana University men's basketball team begins the madness on Sunday as the Lions open the 2025 Jersey Mike's Southland Conference Basketball Championships presented by Explore Louisiana in the first round against Incarnate Word at the Legacy Center in Lake Charles on the McNeese campus.
 
Southeastern (18-13, 12-8 SLC) enters the 2025 SLC Basketball Championships as the six-seed. Tip-off of Sunday's first round contest against the seven-seeded Cardinals (16-15, 9-11 SLC) is set for 7:30 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN+. A radio broadcast will also be available, thanks to the Southeastern Sports Radio Network, on 90.9 FM The Lion in the Hammond/Ponchatoula area and worldwide on LionSports.net/ListenLive or LionUpRadio.org, or you can listen to the game on smart devices through the Lions Gameday Experience app or the MyTuner Radio app. Live stats for will be available through StatBroadcast and the Southland Conference.
 
The Lions are looking to find the form that, at one point, had them winners of 11 out of 12 games in SLC action, hoping a similar run can propel them to a Southland Conference Championship and berth into the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball National Championship Tournament.
 
Sam Hines, Jr., the newly-minted SLC Newcomer of the Year and a First Team All-Conference player, will lead the Lions into the postseason, averaging 16.4 points and 6.4 rebounds a game. He hit 48 percent of his shots throughout the season and 34.5 percent from three-point range. He was one of less than 10 Division I basketball players to score at least 10 points in every one of his team's games during the regular season. On the defensive side, he came up with 32 steals and blocked 18 shots in 2024-25.
 
Jakevion Buckley, who was also named First Team All-Conference while also being named to the SLC's All-Defensive Team, was the driving force behind it all. He averaged 14.5 points per game while leading the team in assists on the season with 4.2 a contest. His 58 steals led the Lions while also grabbing 4.5 rebounds a contest with four blocks on the year.
 
Jeremy Elyzee, SLU's first SLC Freshman of the Year award winner, finished his first year of collegiate basketball averaging 10.3 points per game on 50 percent shooting. He grabbed 4.9 rebounds a game while leading Southeastern in blocked shots by swatting 20 opposing team field goal attempts.
 
Brody Rowbury scored 8.5 points and grabbed 5.4 rebounds a game during the season. He hit 53.1 percent from the field, the highest shooting percentage on the team this season, while also connecting on 37.5 percent from three-point range with six makes from deep. He had 28 assists from his low post position and blocked 11 shots with 13 steals on the year.
 
Kam Burton was the team's best three-point threat during the season, hitting a team-high 52 shots from above the arc during 2024-25. He was a 39.1 percent shooter while hitting 36.4 percent from above the arc on his way to averaging 7.1 points throughout the year. He also grabbed 2.3 rebounds a game and had 15 steals with three blocks.
 
The Lions ended the regular season scoring 72.8 points per game while hitting 44.6 percent from the field and 33.3 percent on three-point attempts. SLU opponents scored 69.7 points per game while hitting 43.8 percent from the field and 32.9 percent on three-pointers against Southeastern.
 
Southeastern's path to a Southland Conference Championship starts with Sunday's game against UIW. The Lions swept both games against the Cardinals this season, taking the game in Hammond on Jan. 25 by an 86-63 score before winning the return game in San Antonio, 71-66, on Feb. 8. Both games came during the 11-1 run for the Lions which stretched from Jan. 6 to Feb. 15.
 
Should SLU get past the Cardinals, the three-seeded Nicholls Colonels loom in a quarterfinal match-up at 7:30 p.m. on Monday. The two teams split the season series with the home team winning both games in two very tight affairs. Nicholls won the SLC opener for both teams, 67-64, in Thibodaux on Dec. 5. Southeastern got its revenge on Feb. 15 as Hines, Jr. hit a stepback three at the buzzer in overtime to take an 84-81 win in Hammond.
 
Knock off the Colonels and a semifinal date with the two-seed Lamar would be next at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday. SLU took down the Cardinals in the lone meeting between the two teams on Feb. 3, 81-79, in Hammond, America. Buckley had a day against his old squad, scoring 19 points with nine rebounds, and three assists to lead the Lions to the win.
 
Run through that gauntlet, then the Championship Game beckons at 4 p.m. on Wednesday against the team that comes out of the other side of the bracket which includes the SLC regular season champion McNeese, four-seed Northwestern State, five-seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, and eight-seed Houston Christian. Southeastern split the season series with both HCU and NSU while suffered sweeps from both A&M-Corpus Christi and McNeese.
 
The winner of the 2025 Jersey Mike's Southland Conference Basketball Championship presented by Explore Louisiana will go dancing in March Madness, receiving an automatic berth into the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball National Championship Tournament.
 
HARDWOOD CLUB/S CLUB
Fans interested in becoming active supporters of the basketball program are encouraged to join the Hardwood Club.  Lion alums are encouraged to join the exclusive S Club, which is restricted to Southeastern athletic letterwinners.  All membership fees and donations to Hardwood Club are available for the exclusive use of the Southeastern basketball program. Membership information is available by contacting the Lion Athletics Association at laa@southeastern.edu or (985) 549-5091 or visiting www.LionUp.com.
 
SOCIAL MEDIA
For more information on Southeastern Basketball, follow @LionUpMBB and @DavidKieferSLU on Twitter, like /SLUathletics on Facebook and subscribe to the SLUathletics YouTube channel.
 
TICKETS
For ticket information, please contact the Southeastern Athletics Ticket Office at (985) 549-5466 or visit www.LionSports.net/tickets. Southeastern is implementing mobile ticketing as the primary source for securing tickets. All tickets will be available via e-mail in a PDF format for fans to download on their phone or print at home. Tickets can also be downloaded to Apple Wallet.