MONTGOMERY, Ala.—DeMarcus Robinson led four Alabama State Hornets in double-digits with 17 points as ASU defeated Mobile 88-58 in ASU’s first home game of the season.
The Hornets had put a lot of time in since their last game at Bradley on defense and rebounding. ASU had given up a lot of points and a lot of rebounds in the first two games and this was a game they wanted to see a marked improvement in those areas.
“Team defense was one thing we wanted to make a point of emphasis going into this game,” Head Coach Lewis Jackson said. “I didn’t think we did a good job of rebounding the ball while we were on the road and we wanted to come back and try to work on communicating on defense, and making sure we did a good job of rebounding and then sharing the ball and tonight we were able to do some of those things.”
All of Robinson’s points came in the first half as ASU was looking for the junior sharp shooter to get untracked in tonight’s contest.
“We really wanted to get DeMarcus going,” Jackson said. “He has not been shooting the ball well in our previous two ball games so we wanted to try and get him off early. He hit some shots and got some curls going and was able to find his shot a little bit. That was big for us to see some shots going in. Hopefully it was big for him as well because we need him to score some for us to have some success.”
Robinson had plenty of help in scoring as Bobby Brown came off the bench to score 14 points and Terrance LeFlore added 11 points coming off the bench. Maurice Strong had his best offensive effort of the young season with 10 points.
Jamel Waters came into tonight’s game averaging 20.5 points per game, but only took five shots in the contest. He scored seven points off those shots, but he did tie his career-high in assists with eight.
“We try and let him (Jamel) play and let him grow at that position by calling plays in certain situations,” Jackson said. “He has the ball 90 percent of the time so he can get his shot anytime he would like and tonight we wanted him to get the other players involved and to get D-Rob (DeMarcus Robinson) going along with the other guys. He didn’t shoot the ball as much tonight but he did a good job passing.”
ASU (1-2) finished the game shooting 57 percent from the field and hit seven of their 16 three point attempts for 44 percent. ASU struggled some at the free throw line hitting 13 of their 21 attempts for 62 percent.
ASU did a better job of rebounding in tonight’s game out rebounding the visitors 35-26. Luther Page and Brandon Graham added game-high seven rebounds each to lead ASU.
Cody Scott scored 13 points, all in the first half, to lead Mobile and Julien Sargent scored 12, including eight straight points to open the second half. With ASU leading 55-44 they went on a 14-0 run over the next five minutes to blow the game open. The Hornets went on to lead by as much as 34 points at 84-50 with 5:57 left in the game.
Robinson’s 17 first half points came on eight-of-nine shooting from the field. As a team the Hornets shot 67 percent in the opening half in building their 48-36 lead. The 12-point lead matched their largest lead of the half.
Mobile (1-2) came out and led 4-0 early and led 9-8 before Robinson scored four consecutive baskets to put ASU up 14-9 and the Hornets never trailed again.
Mobile shot 48 percent from the field, and even better from beyond the three point line knocking down four of their six attempts. Scott came into the game averaging 15 points per game and led the Rams with 13 first-half points.
“This was a game we were able to work on a lot of things we needed to improve on,” Jackson said. “We are still trying to learn each other with 13 new guys and three guys that played a minimal amount of time last year. We are trying to grow and as a team build some continuity offensively and defensively. Tonight we were able to put some things together that allowed us to do that.”
ASU will be back in action Saturday Nov. 16, when they travel to Jacksonville State to play the Gamecocks in a 7 p.m. scheduled game.
