The 2017 SWAC men's basketball tournament was the postseason men's basketball tournament for the Southwestern Athletic Conference. Tournament first-round games were played at the campus of the higher seeded team on March 7. The remainder of the tournament was held on March 10 and 11, 2017 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. Texas Southern, received the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Alcorn State lost to Texas Southern in the championship game, but was ineligible for NCAA postseason play due to APR violations. Had Alcorn State beaten Texas Southern, Texas Southern would have still received the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament because of its first place finish in the regular season.
Seeds
The top eight teams competed in the conference tournament. Teams were seeded by record within the conference, with a tiebreaker system to seed teams with identical conference records. SeedSchoolConference Tiebreaker Tiebreaker 21Texas Southern16–22Alcorn State13–53Southern10–84–2 vs. Gram/Jack/PV A&M4Prairie View A&M10–83–3 vs. Sou/Gram/Jack +9 point differential vs. Gram5Grambling State10–83–3 vs. Sou/Jack/PV A&M–9 point differential vs. PV A&M6Jackson State10–82–4 vs. Sou/Gram/PV A&M7 Mississippi Valley St.7–118Alabama State6–121–1 vs. UAPB4 point differential vs. UAPB
Schedule and results GameTimeMatchup Score Quarterfinals – Tuesday, March 7 – campus sites17:30 pmNo. 8 Alabama State at No. 1 Texas Southern 87–7228:00 pmNo. 5 Grambling State at No. 4 Prairie View A&M81–7737:30 pmNo. 6 Jackson State at No. 3 Southern69–6346:00 pmNo. 7 Mississippi Valley State at No. 2 Alcorn State63–60 Semifinals – Friday, March 10 – Toyota Center, Houston, TX52:30 pmNo. 5 Grambling State vs No. 1 Texas Southern62–5768:30 pmNo. 3 Southern vs No. 2 Alcorn State81–59 Final – Saturday, March 11 – Toyota Center, Houston, TX73:00 pmNo. 2 Alcorn State vs No. 1 Texas Southern53–50 *Game times in CST.Rankings denote tournament seed
Bracket
First round games at campus sites of lower-numbered seeds
References