He flipped the switch and had confidence and took over our team,'' said Texas' Mack Brown, who is still searching for his first conference title in 22 years as a head coach.

We have the swagger to prove to the conference that we're good enough to win it. We feel like we can be the Duke of the mid-majors.

Faculty senate will host a luncheon to recognize the winner. The winner also receives an all expense paid trip to a professional development conference as well as a plaque.

The conference is open to whoever wants to play really good the last half of the season and win it.

The ones that pop up at the last minute at conference are rare.

We didn't want to be co-champs. Deep down, you want your first conference championship to be an outright championship. We controlled that by winning and Washington losing.

We made about a 48-hour turnaround. We had really played poorly down at Aiken (S.C.) and our kids have got great character. They showed great pride and I thought they made a great rebound here at the end of spring break. When we can come out and sweep a conference series, that's really a testimony to their character.

There's not an easy game the rest of the way. Our conference is pretty competitive.

Ever since we put ourselves back in the hunt for first place, we've been playing like we've got something to prove. Each game, we've been playing harder and we finally get to feel what it's like to be conference champions.

If we had lost, it would have put us back in the middle of the pack. So this is a big win for us. Now, we've got to go on and finish the second half of the conference season strong.