Tweet #theGAC  SHAWNEE, Okla. – For the second-straight Great American Conference Men’s Basketball Championships contest, Southwestern Oklahoma State never faced a deficit as the Bulldogs jumped on sixth-seeded Southern Arkansas early en route to a 71-62 semifinal victory from FireLake Arena.
 
The seventh-seeded Bulldogs (13-16) scored the game's first eleven points, extended that advantage to 31-11 and on three occasions enjoyed a 29-point first-half advantage. The Bulldogs used a stifling defense that limited Southern Arkansas (18-12) to 17.2 percent shooting in the opening half to build a 50-24 advantage at intermission.
 
SWOSU shot 61.3 percent in the opening half, including 61.5 percent from the 3-point arc. Jaylan Williams and Damion Thornton did most of the damage as they combined for 27 first-half points on 10-of-13 shooting. Williams made his first five 3-point attempts of the half.
 
Southern Arkansas began the second half with a 16-1 burst of their own. They narrowed the gap to 51-42 following a Devante Brooks three-point play.  It took until a Thornton jumper with 8:49 left for the Bulldogs to make the first field goal of the half.
 
The Bulldogs forced SAU into another dry spell as the Muleriders went more than seven minutes without a field goal.  SAU twice closed within seven but never closer as Williams twice hit 3-pointers to re-establish a double-digit lead for the Bulldogs.
 
Williams paced the Bulldogs with 22 points and Thornton added 20 for SWOSU. One day after setting the GAC Championship single-game record for rebounds, with 20, Jalen Brooks tallied 20 points and 11 rebounds to lead the sixth-seeded Muleriders. Devante Brooks contributed another double-double with 17 points and 12 rebounds.
 
In reaching the final as the seventh seed, the Bulldogs match the record for the lowest seed to play for the title. In 2012, at the inaugural GAC Championships, the Bulldogs defeated second-seeded Henderson State and third-seeded Arkansas-Monticello before losing to Arkansas Tech in the final.
 
They face Southern Nazarene in Sunday’s 1:00 p.m. final. The Bulldogs collected a 77-72 win at home on December 14; Southern Nazarene claimed an 82-63 on the final day of the regular season, February 26.