Texas Southern basketball is the pride of Houston's Third Ward — an HBCU powerhouse that has spent the better part of a decade as the team the entire SWAC has to go through. The Tigers' modern identity was forged in March: three straight NCAA tournament appearances from 2021 through 2023, with First Four victories in 2021 (over Mount St. Mary's) and 2022 (over Texas A&M–Corpus Christi) that made TSU the rare mid-major with a winning record in Dayton. The 2022 win over the Islanders was an all-Texas affair; the 2021 win was the program's first NCAA tournament victory since 1995.
The man behind it all is Johnny Jones, now in his ninth season on the Third Ward sideline. Jones arrived in 2018 with a résumé that needed no introduction: he'd taken North Texas to two NCAA tournaments (2007, 2010) and coached LSU — including a young Ben Simmons — for five seasons. At Texas Southern, he built a machine. Since his arrival the Tigers have finished no worse than third in the SWAC, captured the 2021 and 2022 SWAC tournament championships (the program's 9th and 10th titles), and played in three consecutive postseasons with five postseason wins. His 350th career win came in January 2022, celebrated the way it should be: with another championship run on the horizon.
The signature moment of the Jones era might be the one that happened in December, not March. On Dec. 6, 2021, Texas Southern walked into Gainesville and beat No. 20 Florida 69-54 — the first win over a ranked SEC opponent in SWAC history. The Tigers dominated the glass, led the league in blocks, and announced to the sport that an HBCU from Houston could go anywhere and win. It was TSU's first win over a ranked team since beating Oregon in 2018, and it remains the program's north star: proof of what this roster can do when it locks in.
The 2023 NCAA trip ended in the First Four against Fairleigh Dickinson — the same FDU team that would stun Purdue days later — and the last three seasons have been the grind of staying on top in a league that's caught up. The 2025-26 Tigers went 12-18 overall but 10-8 in the SWAC, tied for fourth, and the 2024-25 squad went 15-17 (12-6). The record doesn't tell the whole story: in the SWAC, the season is a five-month audition for three days in March, and Jones's teams are built for exactly that.
The 2025-26 roster showed the program's formula in miniature. Zaire Hayes — the walk-on who worked his way to preseason second-team All-SWAC honors, the kind of story every coach dreams about — ran the show at guard, backed by graduate guards Kolby Granger and Jaylen Wysinger. Veteran guards Zytarious Mortle and Kehlin Farooq, forwards Josh Farmer and Duane Posey, and 6-10 Incarnate Word transfer Josh Akpovwa gave Jones size and rim protection. Troy Hupstead, a former MEAC Defensive Player of the Year, brought the defensive edge, and freshman Anthony 'L.J.' Andrews — out of Houston's Bellaire High — flashed the energy that could make him a Third Ward favorite for years.
The 2026-27 season is a pivot point. The SWAC has never been deeper — Southern, Grambling, Jackson State, Alcorn State all believe this is their year — and the Tigers' margin for error is gone. But Jones has seen every version of this movie. His teams defend, they rebound (statistically the SWAC's best on the glass in the championship years), and they play their best basketball when the lights are brightest. The Health and Physical Education Arena — the H&PE, one of the great bandbox atmospheres in college basketball when it's full — remains a fortress.
The history here runs deeper than the Jones era. Texas Southern's basketball tradition stretches back through the great teams of the 1990s — the 1994 and 1995 squads that reached the NCAA tournament under Robert Moreland — and the program has long been one of the flagship brands of Black college basketball. The Tigers' band, the Ocean of Soul, is as famous as any in the sport; a TSU home game is a cultural event, not just a basketball game. That matters in recruiting: Jones sells not just playing time and March exposure, but a stage.
The pros keep coming too. The program's pipeline to professional basketball — from the ABA days through the modern era — is one of the proudest in the SWAC, and Jones's recent teams have continued to place players overseas and in the G League. For a program of TSU's resources, the development record is the pitch: come to the Third Ward, get better, and play in March.
What defines Texas Southern is the expectation. This isn't a program that hopes to win the SWAC — it's a program that expects to, and the last three seasons of falling short have only sharpened the hunger. In a one-bid league, the regular season is prologue; the Tigers have won enough SWAC tournaments to know exactly what March requires. The 2021 Florida win showed the ceiling. The 2021 and 2022 Dayton wins showed the floor in March is higher than anyone thought.
In Houston, Texas Southern basketball is bigger than basketball — it's community, it's culture, it's the Ocean of Soul and a packed H&PE on a Saturday night. Johnny Jones built a champion here once, twice, three times. The 2026-27 Tigers are chasing the next one, and in the SWAC, nobody would bet against the team that's done it before.