The Grambling State Tigers men's basketball team represents

Grambling State University Grambling State University (GSU, Grambling, or Grambling State) is a public historically black university in Grambling, Louisiana, United States. Grambling State is home of the Eddie G. Robinson Museum and is listed on the Louisiana African ...

Grambling, Louisiana Grambling is a city in Lincoln Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 5,239 in 2020. The city is home to Grambling State University and is part of the Ruston micropolitan statistical area. Grambling was designated a "city" in ...

. The school's team currently competes in the

Southwestern Athletic Conference The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, which is made up of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Southern United St ...

. They currently play their home games at the Fredrick C. Hobdy Assembly Center. They made their first ever appearance to the

NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as March Madness, or The Big Dance, is a single-elimination tournament played in the United States to determine the men's college basketball national champion of the NCAA Division I, Di ...

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History

The glory years of the Tigers were led by Fred Hobdy, who led the Tigers to eight SWAC regular season titles (five outright) during his coaching tenure. Hobdy went 572-288 as head coach from 1957 to 1986, which saw them play in NCAA Division II and the NAIA. They reached the Elite Eight of the Division II tournament in 1958 and won the NAIA title in 1961. Notable players during this time were

Willis Reed Willis Reed Jr. (June 25, 1942 – March 21, 2023) was an American professional basketball player, coach, and general manager. He spent his entire ten-year pro playing career (1964–1974) with the New York Knicks of the National Basketball ...

, who was an NAIA All-American before becoming drafted by the

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the Na ...

; Reed was inducted into the

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and pre ...

in 1982. The Tigers advanced to the 1980 SWAC men's basketball tournament against Alcorn State (the regular season champion) for a chance to reach the NCAA Division I Tournament but lost 83–61. In 1986, Hobdy retired, later serving as athletic director for the program from 1989 to 1996 prior to his death in 1998 (years later, Grambling's new Assembly Center would be named

after him ''After Him'' () is a 2007 French drama film directed by Gaël Morel. The film stars Catherine Deneuve as Camille, a woman grieving the death of her son Mathieu (Adrien Jolivet) in a car accident, who becomes obsessed with becoming a substitute ...

). The 1986-87 team won the regular season championship but were walloped 105-55 by Southern in the SWAC Final. They returned to the Final the following year and lost again to Southern 78–62. Grambling won a share of the regular season title for the 1988-89 season with Southern and Texas Southern after each had 10-4 records, but Grambling lost in the Semifinals to Texas Southern, who then lost to Southern. The Tigers, with a record of 8–10 in SWAC play and seeded 6th, pulled off two shocking upsets (of three-seeded Mississippi Valley State and two-seeded Jackson State) to advance to the final round of the SWAC men's basketball tournament for the fourth time in program history in 2011 but lost to fourth-seeded Alabama State. The

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

team became the eighth

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...

team to finish a season winless. The

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

Tigers team returned to the SWAC Tournament title game for the fifth time in school history only to lose against Texas Southern, 58–61, for the right to advance to the NCAA Tournament. On March 16, 2024, Grambling won the 2024 SWAC tournament after winning the regular season title, defeating the three-time defending champion Texas Southern, earning its first NCAA tournament bid in program history. The Tigers beat Montana State in the First Four, 88–81 in overtime, giving them their first win in the tournament.

Postseason results

NCAA Division I Tournament results

The Tigers appeared in one

. Their combined record is 1–1.

NIT results

The Tigers have appeared in one

National Invitation Tournament The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) is an annual men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Since 2023, all rounds of the tournament are played at various sites across the country whi ...

(NIT). Their record is 0–1.

CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT) results

The Tigers have appeared in one CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT). Their record is 0–1.

NCAA Division II Tournament results

The Tigers have appeared in two NCAA Division II Tournaments. Their combined record is 3–2.

NAIA Tournament results

The Tigers have appeared in seven NAIA Tournaments. Their combined record is 15–6 and were NAIA national champions in 1961.

References

External links

Website
{{Southwestern Athletic Conference men's basketball navbox