5:13 Seconds That Led To Second Championship For Stephen F. Austin
By Cheval John
KATY, TEXAS-When Sam Houston State narrowly defeated Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 70-67 on Friday night to advance to the finals of the Southland Conference (SLC) Men’s Basketball Tournament, they shot 20% from the field in the first half.
The Bearkats, who were the No.2 seed, had to play near perfect basketball if they wanted to defeat their arch-rival and No.1 seeded Stephen F. Austin.
Unfortunately, the Bearkats was not able to meet the challenge of playing near perfect basketball as horrendous shooting in the closing minutes of the first half led to the Lumberjacks pulling away with an 83-70 victory to claim their second consecutive SLC tournament championship and clinched an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
In the process, Stephen F. Austin (29-4 overall) became the second team to repeat as SLC tournament champions since former conference member, the University of Louisiana at Monroe, won four straight tournament titles (1990-93).
After a back and forth matchup in which Sam Houston State took a 25-24 lead on Kaheem Ransom’s three pointer, things started to fall apart in the final 5:13 of the first half.
The Bearkats (25-8 overall) missed shots and turned the basketball over while the Lumberjacks capitalized with a 13-2 spurt to close out the half with a 37-27 lead.
The dagger that shut Sam Houston’s coffin during that run happened with 02.5 seconds when the Lumberjacks inbounded the basketball and found Tanner Clayton, who hit a buzzer-beating trey from 40 feet.
Sam Houston shot 30 percent from the field in the first half and finished the game shooting 36.1 percent from the field.
The Bearkats also shot 15 percent from three point range.
Lumberjack basketball player, Thomas Walkup, who won the tournament MVP, led all scorers with 24 points and 8 rebounds.
Bearkat senior Michael Holyfield, who made the all-tournament team, led SHSU with 18 points and 12 rebounds.
Stephen F. Austin will find out later today who they will face in the opening round of the NCAA tournament on Selection Sunday that will air on CBS starting at 6 p.m. eastern, 5 p.m. central.
The Bearkats also have a strong possibility to make a post-season as well, but not the NCAAs.
No.8 Houston Baptist In SLC Finals After Upset Win Over SFA
By Cheval John
Photo Courtesy of Erik Williams
When Houston Baptist and Stephen F. Austin met each other twice in the regular season, the Lumberjacks won both of those contests.
Both teams had a date with destiny for the third meeting in the Southland Conference (SLC) Women’s Basketball Tournament semifinals today at the Leonard Merrell Center in Katy, Texas.
The Huskies, who were the No.8 seed, reached the semifinals with two upsets wins over No.5 McNeese State and No.4 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi while the No.1 seeded, Stephen F. Austin, had a double-bye into the semifinals after finishing the regular season in the top 2 spots in the league.
It should have been an easy road for the Lady Jacks to make the finals.
Instead, the Huskies pulled off the upset with an 88-81 win that put them in the finals of the tournament.
It is the first time in the history of the SLC tournament that a No.8 seed has made an appearance in the finals.
The Lady Jacks (23-7), who will receive an automatic invitation in the Women’s National Invitation Tourmanent (WNIT) because of winning the SLC regular season title, had at one point an 18 point lead at 30-12 at the 8:37 mark in the first half.
However, the Huskies chipped away with a 9-0 run to make it 30-20 courtesy of a jumper by Tayler Jefferson and consecutive treys by Heidi Sihvola.
By half time, the Lumberjacks were hanging on to a 41-37 lead.
The Huskies kept chipping away before they were able to regain the lead at 70-68 when Monet Neal, who finished with 9 points, made a layup and was fouled in the process, which allowed her to go to the line and complete the three point play.
Both teams went back and forth in the next three minutes that tied the game up again at 76 with 2:07 left in the game.
Then the Huskies scored four straight points to make it 80-76 with 44 seconds left thanks to layups by Anna Strickland and Rachel Arthur.
Stephen F. Austin made it more interesting as they pulled within a 80-79 lead courtesy of a three pointer by Tierany Henderson with 36 seconds left.
The Huskies sanked two free throws to extend the lead to 82-79 and the Lumberjacks cut the lead again to 82-81 on bucket by Brittney Mathew with 15 seconds left.
After two made free throws again to extend the lead to 84-81, the Lumberjacks tried to tie the game.
However, Mathew was called for the offensive foul and the Huskies iced the game with four straight free throws and a chance to become the second team in their school history to advance to the NCAA tournament (Huskies soccer team advanced to NCAA’s tournament in the fall of last year).
They will face No.6 seed Northwestern State, who defeated No.2 Lamar 70-64 in overtime.
Don’t Do What Everyone Thinks Is Best For You
By Cheval John
Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles
When I first started blogging four years ago, I would not have imagined that I would fall in love with it.
I saw this as an opportunity to showcase my thoughts on what was happening in the world and being able to tell stories of people who are achieving success the right way.
Let just say that I did not had a direction of what niche I wanted to get into.
All I knew was the fact that this was an amazing platform.
One thing I did not do was remain consistent in the blogging schedule because it was like the spur of the moment if a particular event happened.
In that first year, I learned that you had to keep on blogging every week because if you did not, you would lose some readers and it would take a while to gain them back.
Even to this day, I still struggle with writing long form content because I will admit, I get bored if the content is very long winded and it does not get straight to the point.
However, it has been a fun challenge to write longer form content because I am a contributing blogger for Millennial CEO and I want to give their audience the best information possible that will make them feel better and give them actionable advice.
Since founding this website three years ago, the blog posts has been a mixture of sports, some travel and university affairs.
Also, the site has been growing slowly with viewership from around the world whether they stumbled on the site by accident or had meant to visit it.
I will be honest of the fact that I wished I could have bigger viewership.
At the same time, I rather this type of slow growth because I want to see what works and what does not work.
I also want to achieve what is called the “5 to 10 year overnight success” because I want people to see that there is no such thing as an overnight success.
I want them to see that they have to put in the effort and work to achieve their goals and not think that someone was lucky when they achieved their goals of writing a great book, running their own company, etc.
When they say that someone is lucky, all they are doing is cheapening the success of the person and validating their excuse that they cannot achieve their goals.
Also, I want this site to be as close as the Huffington Post as possible.
Is this a lofty goal?
Yes, it is a lofty goal.
At the same time, I believe it can be achievable and I am willing to work extremely hard to achieve the goal of being a close to the Huffington Post.
The only thing is that I will not use any short cuts to get there because I rather achieve the fruits of my labor.
Another thing I want to address is the fact that there have been so many blogs, podcasts webinars, etc. that talks about choosing a niche.
While I am totally in agreement with the people who mentioned about choosing a niche, I have to disagree with them to a small degree.
The reason is that I love sports, travel, business and social media and I feel that it is very difficult to choose one out of the other.
I believe that these things above is who I am and I want to express myself here by writing about sporting events, travel and interesting things that is going on in social media.
Maybe I am not the only one who think this.
If I am the only one who think it is o.k. to write about different subjects like sports, travel or other things that interest them and not just one particular subject, then I will not apologize for it.
All I care about is making the reader feel better about themselves and solving their problems.
This is the reason why I am blogging.
I hope that you will do what you love and not worry about what other people think about you.
Going To The Next Level Through Writing A Book And Starting A Podcast
By Cheval John
Photo courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti
Disclaimer: I am an Amazon Affiliate and I receive a commission for each book I recommend.
I decided to try to gain more book sales for my first book, “8 Things You Need To Do Before Quitting Your Job” by putting it on Sweet Free Books site after I saw success with running a campaign on there with my second book “8 Lessons Every Podcaster Needs To Learn.” You will see the results below.
The first book is still on sale for .99 cents on Amazon.
Without further ado, here is the article.
You have started a new business and are looking to gain new customers or clients.
Whether it is a sports nutrition company, being a baseball trainer, a public relations consultant, etc., you want to set yourself apart from the crowd.
You have heard the many advice on starting a blog to grow your audience.
Though that is a great idea, which I am a strong proponent of blogging, you will be in competition with other people because the blogosphere is really oversaturated with about 450 million blogs in every niche.
Two ideas that can help you to stand out and add more power to your blog is starting a podcast and write a book.
I will explain further.
Podcasts have been around for about a decade.
However, they have been exploding at record pace and recently, they were 1 billion downloads on iTunes.
Another thing to keep notice of in podcasting is that Apple came out with the New Carplay system last year, which allows a person to connect their iPhone to their dashboard of their car.
The Apple Carplay is set to be in about 50% of cars this year which will allow any podcaster to reach a huge audience.
One more thing to keep notice of is that they are about 300,000 podcasts in the world.
So that is ample opportunity for anyone to get out their message and separate themselves from the competition.
Another great way for an entrepreneur/solopreneur to stand out from the crowd is to write a book.
The reason why this is important is because not many people write books.
According to this 2011 article by Publishing Perspectives, about 200 million Americans dreams of writing a book.
However, not many follow through.
They might see the plenty obstacles like gaining the attention of a literary agent who can pitch your book proposal to publishers.
However, many can circumnavigate this by self-publishing.
And self-publishing has become more popular thank to platforms like Amazon’s Createspace.
Now that is good news for anyone because they can get their message out to the world.
And the point that you have written a book will elevate you to another level because people will see you as an expert.
What if you want to get the word out about your book and stand out from an estimated 4 million ebooks on Amazon.
One of the ways to stand out is running promotionals on discounted book sites.
The ones that are really great are Buck Books and Book Bub.
The criteria to run a campaign on Buck Books is that your book must either be 100 pages or have over 10,000 words.
I have seen people who ran their book campaigns on Buck Books gained Amazon-Best Seller Status including No.1 in different categories.
Before I show you how running a book campaign on these discounted sites helps an author, let me explain something that I have learned while taking a Self-Publishing Success Academy class from the teachers, Kimanzi Constable and Jimmy Burgess and I am paraphrasing.
Amazon wants a person to become a best-selling author because it will help drive more business to their site and help them to make money in addition to you making money.
The way how a person become an Amazon best-selling author is to have their book ranked in the top 100 overall.
Though you might think that you can’t get your book in the top 100 overall, their is good news.
If your book is ranked in the top 100 in any category that you choose to feature your book, you will have become a best-selling author.
And Amazon update their best-selling author’s list every hour.
The interesting thing is that even if you don’t sell a whole lot of books overall, the point that your book sold enough at a certain time will allow you to achieve the Amazon Best-Selling status.
Now that you know a little bit about achieving the Amazon Best-Selling Status, here is how Beau Henderson became an Amazon No.1 best-selling author.
Mr. Henderson ran a campaign on Buck Books for his book, “The Rich Life: Ten Investments For True Wealth” and it made the No.1 Amazon Best-Seller in three categories.
That distinction of being a No.1 Amazon Best-Selling Author will always give Mr. Henderson the opportunity to gain even more clients and take his business, The Rich Life Group to another level.
Now if you have written a book that is less than 100 pages, then there is an alternative to Buck Books.
It is called Sweet Free Books.
Sweet Free Books has books ranging from romance to non-fiction.
If you are accepted to run a book campaign on there, you would have to pay $5 dollars to run the campaign.
That is really cheap.
Also, you will have to change the price of your book on Amazon to either free or .99 cents days before the campaign hit live on Sweet Free Books.
I know this because I ran my second book, “8 Lessons Every Podcaster Needs To Learn” on Sweet Free Books and I forgot the first time to change the price on Amazon before the campaign ran.
However, I did not make the above mistake again and as a result, I became an Amazon Best-Seller in the Small Business and Business and Money Categories.
I will be very honest, I did not sell thousands of books.
However, I sold just enough to achieve the Amazon Best-Selling author status.
Here is the results below.
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,415 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
o #70 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Entrepreneurship & Small Business > Small Business
o #100 in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > 90 minutes (44-64 pages) > Business & Money
As you can see, it was 70th in Small Business and 100th in Business and Money.
At one point, the book was 78th at the 3 p.m. hour on February 8th in the top 100 in the Small Business category:
Amazon Best Sellers
Our most popular products based on sales. Updated hourly.
Best Sellers in Small Business
• Top 100 Paid
74.
Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Str…
by Steve McClatchy
4.8 out of 5 stars (116)
Kindle Edition
$10.99
75.
Black Hole Focus: How Intelligent Peo…
by Isaiah Hankel
4.9 out of 5 stars (117)
Kindle Edition
$13.99
76.
Start Your Own Business, Sixth Editio…
by Inc The Staff of Entrepreneur Media
4.0 out of 5 stars (1)
Kindle Edition
$14.72
77.
Local Online Marketing: Small Busines…
by Claude Whitacre
4.8 out of 5 stars (44)
Kindle Edition
$2.99
78.
8 Lessons Every Podcaster Needs To Le…
by Cheval John
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
Kindle Edition
$0.99
79.
Turning Memories Into Cash: a step by…
by Kathy Moore
4.9 out of 5 stars (11)
Kindle Edition
$2.99
Then it dropped to 95th in the top 100 at the 5 p.m. hour before dropping out completely:
Amazon Best Sellers
Our most popular products based on sales. Updated hourly.
Best Sellers in Small Business
• Top 100 Paid
92.
Local Online Marketing: Small Busines…
by Claude Whitacre
4.8 out of 5 stars (44)
Kindle Edition
$2.99
93.
El Emprendedor que llevas dentro (Spa…
by Alvaro Mendoza
4.4 out of 5 stars (12)
Kindle Edition
$6.99
94.
The Way to Wealth: Advice, Hints, and…
by Benjamin Franklin
2.5 out of 5 stars (2)
Kindle Edition
$2.51
95.
8 Lessons Every Podcaster Needs To Le…
by Cheval John
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
Kindle Edition
$0.99
96.
Turning Memories Into Cash: a step by…
by Kathy Moore
4.9 out of 5 stars (11)
Kindle Edition
$2.99
97.
The Virtual Assistant Solution: Come…
by Michael Hyatt
4.3 out of 5 stars (63)
Kindle Edition
So you have seen how you can stand out from the crowd by writing a book and starting a podcast in addition to blogging.
The only question now is what are you waiting for.
Choose Yourself In Order To Earn Attention For Your Talent
By Cheval John
Photo Courtesy of Tigger 11th
As we are almost in the middle of March, most of the U.S. are anticipating the NCAA Division I basketball tournament, which is dubbed as “March Madness.”
This week, teams are vying for a chance to make this prestigious tournament and have an opportunity to showcase their talent in front of a national television audience.
Let me rephrase that, teams who are normally not featured almost regularly on national media outlets like their counterparts in the top conferences (ACC, Big 12, SEC, Pac 12, Big East).
The only way these “unknowns” have the same opportunity to showcase their talents on national television is if they are in the finals of their respective conference tournaments and if the winner is playing in the national tournament.
Now things have kind of changed in recent years with the “unknowns” getting some television coverage during the regular season.
Before, a person would only know of the big name schools like Texas A&M, Florida State, the University of Florida, the University of Texas, etc. because their teams would always receive constant television coverage.
You could say that collegiate sports have always been the best marketing tactics to gain exposure for their respective schools.
Others would say that it a particular degree programs or world class teachers that allowed their institution to gain either national attention or world-wide attention.
The truth of the matter is that collegiate sports is the reason why universities are gaining national exposure.
And prospective students would always dream of going to the big name schools because they want to be part of the attention that the schools are receiving.
And the branded schools would be able to recruit the 5-star athletes because they have the capabilities of helping them reach the professional sports levels like the NFL and the NBA.
So the not-so branded schools like Davidson, Sam Houston State, McNeese State, Stephen F. Austin, etc., were at a disadvantage because they could not recruit the 5-star athlete and also gain the best and brightest students in the world (the exception of gaining the brightest students are the Ivy League schools like Harvard and Princeton).
The lesser known conferences would at times gain national attention if their schools made a national tournament (mainly the NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament, the College World Series and in football, the Divison I Football Championship Subdivision playoffs).
In this day and age, the playing field have been leveled to a large degree for all universities.
Some of the mid-major conferences made deals with television networks like ESPN and Fox Sports to broadcast their games on television.
While conferences of the “lesser known schools” in the words of James Altucher, “choose themselves”* and create their own television networks to showcase their athletes. term paraprhased*
One of the conferences who “choose themselves” was the Southland Conference.
They have always found a way to remain competitive in the midst of realignments of schools in their now 51st year of operation.
However, they went to another level under the direction of commissioner Tom Burnett.
With his leadership, the conference decided to create the Southland Conference Television Network in 2008 to showcase their member school’s athletes (regular season, football, basketball and in tournament time, all of the sports teams) via television affiliates to about 13 million viewers in the states of Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas.
If the Southland did not choose themselves, then the nation would not have been able to see former Sam Houston State running back, Timothy Flanders flipped over the defender and landed in the endzone for the touchdown.
And because the Southland choose themselves, they have earned the attention of national media outlets to where their members’ regular season football games and basketball games are now broadcast live nationally on ESPN3 in addition to their network.
The lesson that can be learned from this is that if you want to gain your dream job, but you are not “qualified” for the job, then you have to create your own opportunities to succeed.
Most of the time, job seekers just send in their resumes and hoping that someone will call them in for an interview with the possibility to work at their company.
Instead of waiting and hoping for that call after putting in the resume, be proactive.
You can do internships to get your foot in the door, attend networking events, etc.
From there, you can share your knowledge and the lessons from the work experience you gained either with your own blog, a podcast, or YouTube channel.
When you do the above, nine times out of ten, you will have a much better chance to gain your dream job.
In the case of podcasting, you can interview anyone who are in the industry that you want to work in like public relations and share their story of success with your audience.
I can guarantee you the most busy professionals will say yes to the opportunities to be on your show because they see the opportunity to promoting themselves and their companies without spending a whole lot of money for marketing.
In conclusion, do not wait for someone to validate your talent or expertise because you will probably be waiting forever.
Instead, create your own opportunities by blogging, podcasting, etc and prove to the prospective employers that you are very knowledgeable in your chosen career field.
Over time, you will gain the recognition and even earn your dream job with the company you always wanted to work for.
Video courtesy of the Southland Conference Digital Network
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