The 2026 SCIAC Men’s Basketball Tournament will begin on Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 7 p.m. with the First Round matchup between #4 seed Occidental College and #5 seed California Lutheran University, the winner of which will face #1 University of Redlands while #2 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges host #3 Chapman University in the other semifinal.
 
Tournament Central
 
The top-seeded Bulldogs led the conference with an average scoring margin of 17.9 points per game with the league’s top-ranked offense (91.9 points per game), carrying Redlands to its first #1 seed since 2013. Nine players averaged between 17.9 and 24.6 minutes per game with relentless defensive pressure and league-leading 11.63 steals per game resulting in a 7.00 turnover margin while the Bulldogs poured in 10.3 made three-pointers per game and crashed the offensive boards for 14.1 rebounds per game to lead the SCIAC. Lucas Gordon paced the team with 14.3 points despite playing just 23.6 minutes per game along with grabbing 9.0 rebounds, while Jhace Boston joined Gordon as the only two players in the conference with at least 1.3 blocks, 1.2 steals and 1.5 assists per game (Boston dished out 3.6). Last year’s Defensive Athlete of the Year, Omari Ferguson, also remained high in the conference rankings for steals (third, 2.3) and assists (2.9) while Jake Hlywiak led the league with 2.7 made three-pointers on 43.9 percent shooting.
 
CMS landed the #2 seed after dropping both regular season games to the Bulldogs after opening the season a program-record 16-0. The Stags kept nearly everything inside the arc with just 2.1 made three-pointers per game (less than a third of the next-ranked team) and it paid dividends in their efficiency numbers as CMS led the conference with a .500 field goal percentage, including a 63.6 percent clip from center Cahal Connolly. With the conference’s top defense (69.1 points per game), the Stags controlled possession thanks to league-leading marks in rebound margin (9.9), assist-to-turnover ratio (1.78) and opposing field goal percentage (.413). Reid Jones led the SCIAC with 2.7 steals per game while Will Householter shouldered the scoring load, ranking second with 20.3 points per game.
 
Chapman University returns to the tournament field after a one-year hiatus with the Panthers’ all-time record of 7-2 (.778) the best mark in the conference. Cruz Billings and Jake Heberle have one last opportunity to make a run together, with the former recently posting a 21-point, 11-assist double-double to become the first Panthers to top 400 career assists while Heberle passed the 1,500-point threshold and ranked second in both free-throw percentage (.887) and three-point percentage (.404) as well as eighth in field goal percentage (.454) this season. Chapman was the only team to pull upsets against both No. 4 Redlands (Dec. 3) and No. 10 CMS (Jan. 31), though both came at home whereas the SCIAC Tournament will run through both foes’ home courts.
 
Tied with Chapman at 11-5, Occidental College represents the strongest #4 seed to qualify for the tournament since 2009, when three teams tied at 10-4 one game out of the tightest championship race ever. The Tigers’ trademark efficiency once again had them ranked second in both FG% (.497) and opponents’ FG% (.416), with both marks a mere .003 shy of a national top 15 squad in CMS. Oxy additionally limited opponents to the lowest three-point percentage in the conference (.307) and kept foes out of rhythm even at the free-throw line, where amazingly the difference between the Tigers’ league-low .688 percentage faced and the next-best team’s was 25 percent greater than the difference between the other eight teams in the conference. The 6-3 Alex McCleery Brown ranked second in the conference with 10.6 rebounds per game to pace Oxy’s league-best 40.5 average, while the sophomore teamed with classmate Nasir Luna and senior Nicky Clotfelter to form the top-scoring trio in the league at a combined 52.7 points per game.
 
After back-to-back shares of the regular season title, California Lutheran University reloaded with sharpshooter Jaden Young whose .470 three-point percentage topped the conference as the Kingsmen averaged a league-best 10.4 treys per game. The junior combined with senior Ze’ev Remer and rookie Cody Shen to dish out 7.6 assists per game. CLU overcame a five-game winless streak in January to go 5-1 and control its fate leading into the final week of the season, though an 86-82 home defeat to Oxy in the regular season finale leaves the Kingsmen 0-2 against the Tigers heading to Eagle Rock for the First Round. CLU did register a season highlight with a home victory over Redlands on Jan. 31 in which Young went off for a game-high 22 points on 6-of-9 from three-point land. Ryder Mjoen in particular has stepped up down the stretch, ending the season with four straight double-digit scoring efforts including a season-high 23 points in the Oxy game.
 
The final game will be played on Sunday, Mar. 1 at 2 p.m. on the campus of the highest remaining seed.
 
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