FRISCO, Texas – As part of the Southland Conference commemoration of its 50th anniversary in 2013, you can help pick the top men's basketball moment in league history -- and Northwestern State fans can show their support by voting for the Demons' 2006 NCAA Tournament win over Iowa, culminated by the game-winning 3-point shot from Jermaine Wallace with half a second to go.

Ten of the conference's top events during its first 50 years are published on the conference website at Southland.org and on the conference's Facebook page at facebook.com/SouthlandConference.

 

Fans can log onto the Facebook page  to vote for their favorite men's basketball memory in the conference, which was founded on March 15, 1963. Fans may vote one time per day. The results will be announced during the Southland Conference Basketball Tournament, which will be held March 13-16 at the Leonard E. Merrell Center in Katy, Texas.

 

The league will have other events to commemorate its 50th anniversary through 2013, beginning with men's basketball and continuing through the league's 50th football season next fall.

 

Fans will  select their favorite moment of these 10 nominees:

 

•              Splendid 60s Era – Lamar, Abilene Christi, Trinity, Arkansas State Succeed in College Division

•              Louisiana-Lafayette's Dwight “Bo” Lamar – Southland Scoring Machine

•              Super 70s Era – Superstar Players & More

•              Lamar's 80-Game Home Win Streak, 1978-84

•              Lamar's Incredible NCAA Tournament Run from 1979-83

•              Louisiana Tech's 1985 Nationally Rank “Sweet Sixteen” Team

•              1986 – Three Teams in the NIT, One in the Final Four

•              Awesome 80s Era – The Cardinals, The Mailman, Joe & More

•              Louisiana-Monroe's Mike Vining & His All-Time Winning Ways

•              2006 Northwestern State “Demons of Destiny”

 

Summaries of each nominee are listed below.

 

2006 Northwestern State “Demons of Destiny”

Providing the Southland Conference one of its greatest seasons in recent memory, the 2005-06 Northwestern State Demons made it very clear that something special was in the works that year with early wins at Oklahoma State, at Mississippi State and vs. Oregon State. This was only a precursor to how the Demons would go on to dominate the Southland Conference schedule with a 15-1 mark, earning the right to host the Southland Conference tournament in Natchitoches. The Demons rolled to three more wins in the tournament to secure the Southland's automatic bid to the NCAA championship.

 

Garnering only a No. 14 seed in the Atlanta Regional, the Demons were matched with the formidable task of facing No. 3 seed and Big Ten tournament champion Iowa at Auburn Hills, Mich. The game didn't start favorably for the Demons as they fell behind 18-4, before rallying to take a brief 21-20 lead.  They trailed at the half 28-24. The Hawkeyes rebuilt a daunting lead in the second half as well, stretching their advantage to 54-37 with 8:29 left to play. Just when it looked like the Demons' season was coming to an end, NSU's Clifton Lee went on an amazing run, scoring 16 points in a 20-6 spurt that pulled narrowed Iowa's advantage to 60-57 with less than two minutes to play.

 

As the game reached its waning moments, a Hawkeye free throw gave Iowa a 63-61 lead with 14 seconds left, leading to one of the greatest moments in NCAA tournament history.

 

The Demons had an initial shot at tying the game when Kervin Forges' two-point attempts rattled off the rim high and into the hands of NSU's Jermaine Wallace. With only .5 seconds left, Wallace heaved a fade-away 3-point attempt from the corner that found nothing but net to give the Demons a 64-63 lead. After a desperation half-court miss by the Hawkeyes, Northwestern State owned one of the greatest comebacks in the history of March Madness.

 

Despite a 67-54 second round loss to West Virginia, the “Demons of Destiny” ignited a storm of national media attention for the program and the university that's become historic. The NSU-Iowa game telecast is often replayed on ESPN Classic, and the game was ranked No. 22 among the “25 Best Tourney Moments” in the past 25 years by SI.com editors. ESPN.com editors listed Wallace's shot among the “Top 16 Game Ending Plays” in the last 30 years of NCAA tournament history. The winning play also won the 2006 Pontiac Game Changing Performance award for that year's tournament. Fan voting resulted in a $105,000 general scholarship donation by General Motors/Pontiac to Northwestern State.

 

Splendid 60s Era – Lamar, Abilene Christian, Trinity, Arkansas State Succeed in the College Division

The initial years of Southland Conference basketball saw many great players and coaches push the league to the top of what was then known as the NCAA's College Division (later Division II).

 

Almost immediately, the league was placing multiple teams into postseason play, with Abilene Christian and Lamar earning NCAA berths in 1964.

 

ACU received another postseason bid in 1965, and in 1966, Abilene Christian, Arkansas State and Lamar all advanced to NCAA action. In fact, ACU lost to North Dakota in the 1966 College Division National Championship game, 63-62.

 

Arkansas State repeated with an NCAA trip in 1967, and Trinity earned a berth in 1968, and the Tigers advanced to win the NCAA's Third-Place Game, 68-62, against Ashland.

 

 

Louisiana-Lafayette's Dwight “Bo” Lamar – Southland Scoring Machine

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Dwight “Bo” Lamar was one of college basketball's prolific scorer's even before his then Southwestern Louisiana “Ragin' Cajuns” joined the Southland Conference in 1971. Playing the two previous seasons in the Gulf States Conference, Lamar averaged 22.8 points per game as a freshman and an astonishing 36 points per game as a sophomore.

 

When the Cajuns moved into the Southland and the NCAA's University Division (Division I), Lamar didn't slow down a bit, averaging 36.3 points in leading USL to a 25-4 record, a national Top-10 ranking, and a berth in the then 24-team NCAA tournament. As a senior, Lamar “cooled” to a 28.9 scoring clip, but the Cajuns again ranked among the nation's top teams, earning another NCAA tournament bid.

 

Lamar's career scoring average was 31.2 points per game, and including his career total of 3,493 points, he still holds 13 Southland scoring records to this day. Lamar was a third-round pick by the Detroit Pistons in the 1973 NBA Draft, and he played for three ABA teams before ending his professional career in 1977 with the Los Angeles Lakers.

 

 

Super 70s Era – Superstar Players & More

In addition to the accolades of Dwight “Bo” Lamar at Southwestern Louisiana, the decade of the 1970s featured spectacular basketball performances with plenty of fantastic players in this 10-year period.

 

A three-time All-Southland Conference selection, Abilene Christian's Ronnie Hearne led the league in scoring in 1970 with a 22.0 average.

 

Upon Louisiana Tech's entry into the league in the early, few players were as physically gifted as the Bulldogs' 6-10 center Mike Green, a two-time all-conference choice and the 1973 Southland player of the year after scoring 30.9 points per game. Green earned countless All-America honors, and was a first-round draft choice by both the NBA's Seattle Supersonics and the ABA's Denver Nuggets.

 

Arkansas State's tandem of Steve Brooks and Don Scaife took scoring titles in 1974 and 1975, respectively.

 

Louisiana Tech's Mike McConathy, who now leads Northwestern State as its head coach, earned three All-Southland honors as a sharp-shooting guard who twice led the league in scoring, including a 27.5 clip in 1977.

 

McConathy was followed by another great shooter, USL's Andrew Toney who led the league in scoring from 1978-80, finishing as the Southland's third all-time leading scorer with 2,526 points.

 

McNeese State's Henry Ray (1975) and David Lawrence (1979) took league player of the year honors while each also earned first-team All-Southland honors.

 

Lamar's dynamic scoring duo of Mike Olliver and B.B. Davis came on the scene in 1977, combining for over 5,600 points scored in their careers as the Billy Tubbs-led Cardinals became a nationally prominent program at the end of the decade.

 

 

Lamar's 80-Game Home Win Streak, 1978-84

What began as a hard-working 59-54 Southland Conference win against Arkansas State on Feb. 18, 1978, the Lamar Cardinals embarked on a remarkable 80-game home win streak during the next six seasons.

 

Coinciding with Lamar's remarkable NCAA tournament success, the Cardinals were simply unstoppable at home during the streak, whether playing in the on-campus McDonald Gym, where the streak began, or in the Beaumont Civic Center, where the Cardinals hosted games from 1980-84. The streak continued through the 1981 and 1983 Southland tournaments that were held at the Civic Center, but came to an end at the 1984 Southland tournament, when Louisiana Tech ended the run with a 68-65 win over the Cardinals in the championship game on March 10, 1984.

 

The home streak currently ranks as the seventh longest in Division I history.

 

 

Lamar's Incredible NCAA Tournament Run from 1979-83

Following a six-year drought of having no Southland Conference teams in the NCAA tournament, Southland Conference administrators and coaches successfully lobbied the national association to award the league with an automatic bid to the 1979 event.

 

The Lamar Cardinals took full advantage of their newfound postseason opportunity. After rolling to a 9-1 championship mark in league play, the 1979 Cardinals, led by coach Billy Tubbs, garnered a No. 10 seed with a matchup with No. 7 seed Detroit in Murfreesboro, Tenn. The Titans proved no match for the Cardinals and the 33-point, 19-rebound performance by Clarence Kea, who led the team to an impressive 95-87 win in the opening round before falling in the next round to the eventual national champion Michigan State.

 

In 1980, there was more of the same, and then some, as the Cardinals returned to the “Big Dance” as another No. 10 seed in the West Region, forced to face No. 7 seed Weber State on its own home court in Ogden, Utah. Lamar's 87-86 win over the Wildcats, behind a 37-point output from star Mike Olliver, propelled the Cards into a second-round round matchup against prohibitive favorite and No. 2 seed and Pac-10 champion Oregon State. The Cardinals jumped on Oregon State from the tip, building a 14-point lead, placing five players in double figures and winning 81-77. On to the “Sweet Sixteen” where Lamar faced Clemson of the ACC. Despite leading most of the game, the Tigers rallied to end the Cardinals' season, 74-66.

 

In 1981, Lamar won the first Southland tournament with first-year coach Pat Foster and earned the opportunity as a No. 8 seed in the Midwest Region in Austin, Texas, to face No. 9-seed Missouri. Earlier in the season, Mizzou had handled Lamar at home, 92-70, but the Cardinals, led by Olliver's 25 points, turned back the Tigers and their four future NBA players, 71-67. Lamar advanced to the second round, but Final Four-bound LSU got the best of the Cardinals, 100-78.

 

After an “off” year with an NIT berth in 1982, the Cardinals returned to their championship ways in 1983, winning the Southland tournament in Beaumont and earning a No. 11 seed in the Midwest Region at Houston. The first-round opponent was No. 6-seed Alabama, and the Cardinals, led by Lamont Robinson's 20 points, stunned the Crimson Tide, 73-50, the biggest point difference in the entire 1983 NCAA tournament. A narrow 60-58 loss to No. 3 Villanova kept Lamar from advancing to the “Sweet Sixteen.”

 

Lamar's five NCAA wins in those five years the Southland's most concentrated success in such a time period.

 

 

Louisiana Tech's 1985 Nationally Ranked “Sweet Sixteen” Team

Coming off a breakthrough 1983-84 season of firsts, including winning the Southland Conference tournament and a first-round victory over Fresno State in the NCAA tournament, the 1984-85 Louisiana Tech Bulldogs were poised for more success and unprecedented attention. The team wasted no time early in the season when the Karl Malone-led Bulldogs raced to a 10-0 start that included a win against No. 6 Louisville, 73-64, and road victories at Western Kentucky and Marshall.

 

Tech entered the AP poll at No. 20 on Dec. 18, 1984, and remained in the national rankings the rest of the year, peaking at No. 7 in late February before finishing No. 8 in the final ratings. While the Bulldogs rolled to an 11-1 mark in league play to win the Southland regular-season title, Tech narrowly survived two games against Louisiana-Monroe and Lamar in the Southland tournament to gain the league's automatic bid

 

As a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Midwest Regional, the highest seed given a Southland team, the Bulldogs quickly dispatched Pittsburgh and Ohio State to advance to the Midwest semifinals against Oklahoma. The Sooners prevailed in overtime, 86-84, and Louisiana Tech's storybook season ended with a 29-3 record.

 

 

1986 – Three Teams in the NIT, One in the Final Four

After terrific NCAA runs by Lamar and Louisiana Tech in recent years, the 1985-86 Southland Conference season appeared to be a bit more tranquil, although Lamar's crushing 78-59 home win over defending national champ Villanova reminded everyone of the Cardinals' ability to compete successfully outside the league. However, it was Louisiana-Monroe's turn at the top of the Southland, winning both the regular season and tournament titles before falling to UNLV in the NCAA tournament.

 

The larger story turned out to be the “other” tournament – the National Invitation Tournament – as a record three Southland teams earned berths: Lamar, McNeese State and Louisiana Tech.

 

While the Cardinals suffered a tough 65-63 home loss to George Mason in the NIT first round, the McNeese Cowboys handled Dayton at home, 86-75, and Louisiana Tech won 67-61 at Northern Arizona. While not ideal, the wins forced an intra-conference matchup between Tech and McNeese in Ruston, La., that the Bulldogs won, 77-61. That sent Tech to a quarterfinal game at Providence led by a young Rick Pitino and featuring a sharp-shooting guard named Billy Donovan.

 

Tech edged the Friars that night, 64-63, to earn an unthinkable trip to New York City's Madison Square Garden for an NIT semifinal game with Ohio State. The Buckeyes exacted revenge for the previous year's NCAA loss to Louisiana Tech, dispatching the Bulldogs, 79-66. However, Tech rebounded to defeat Florida in the NIT third-place game, 67-62.

 

 

Awesome 80s Era – The Cardinals, The Mailman, Joe & More

At the turn of the decade, Lamar was on top of the Southland Conference mountain with players such as Mike Olliver and B.B. Davis leading the Cardinals to championships and postseason success from 1979 through 1981.

 

Opening the '80s with an appearance in the NCAA “Sweet Sixteen” under head coach Billy Tubbs, the Cardinals didn't miss a beat with five more consecutive postseason appearances under new leader Pat Foster.

 

The decade also saw the recruitment and development of two game-changing players for the league, Joe Dumars and Karl Malone, both who would go on to be among the all-time NBA greats.

 

Dumars became only the second player in Southland history to be named first-team all-conference for four years, and he “bookended” his career with the 1982 freshman of the year award and the 1985 player of the year honor. Now the president of basketball operations for the Detroit Pistons, where he was a first-round draft choice and won two NBA titles as a player, Dumars finished his McNeese career with 2,607 points, second all-time in the Southland.

 

The Malone era of success at Louisiana Tech brought an unprecedented level of national media and fan attention to the school and Southland than at perhaps any other time. With his catchy “Mailman” nickname, Malone and his teammates scratched success in the 1984 NCAA tournament with a win over Fresno State, and parlayed that into prominent national rankings and a “Sweet Sixteen” run in 1985. Like Dumars, Malone was a NBA first-rounder and became one of the league's most dominant power forwards with the Utah Jazz, earning a spot on the NBA's Top 50 all-time team and winning gold medals with the U.S. Olympic Teams in 1992 and 1996.

 

Foster's Lamar teams kept rolling with an 80-game home win streak, a pair of Southland tournament titles, two NCAA trips and four NIT appearances.

 

McNeese State also garnered an NIT appearance in 1986, and Arkansas State also played a rare postseason game against Arkansas, falling to the Razorbacks in the 1987 NIT, 67-64.

 

The Southland Conference tournament debuted at the Beaumont Civic Center in 1981, and Louisiana-Monroe (1986), North Texas (1988) and McNeese State (1989) all gained their first postseason championships during the decade.

 

In addition to Foster's stellar coaching mark of 134-49 in his six Lamar seasons, Louisiana Tech's Andy Russo tallied an outstanding 122-55 record from 1980-85, McNeese State's Glenn Duhon won more than 100 games in the decade, and Louisiana-Monroe's Mike Vining was just embarking on his record-setting coaching career.

 

Membership changes at the end of the decade arrived with the departures of Louisiana Tech, Arkansas State and Lamar (returned in 1998) and the additions of Northwestern State, Sam Houston State, Stephen F. Austin and Southwest Texas State.

 

 

Louisiana-Monroe's Mike Vining & His All-Time Winning Ways

By far the Southland Conference's all-time winningest coach, Mike Vining led the Northeast Louisiana/Louisiana-Monroe men's basketball program as the league's standard-bearer for many years. Vining led the Indians to 401 wins (383 as a Southland member), and made seven NCAA tournament appearances and an NIT berth in his 24 seasons leading the program.

 

With six 20-win seasons and nine conference championships, Vining also coaches 46 all-conference players, including seven league players of the year and five newcomers of the year. Sixteen of his players surpassed the 1,000-point scoring plateau, and 7-footer Wojciech Myrda set the NCAA record in career blocks in 2002.

 

For his remarkable coaching efforts, Vining was selected for induction into the Southland Conference Hall of Honor in 2006, and he entered the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2010.