MONTGOMERY, Ala.— Steve Rogers came off the bench and scored a career-high 14 points in leading Alabama State to a 72-52 Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) over Jackson State.
Rogers had plenty of offensive help as ASU had four players reach double digits. Jamel Waters had 13, Maurice Strong scored 12 and DeMarcus Robinson added 11.
“What is starting to happen with this team as a group is they are starting to play for each other,” Head Coach Lewis Jackson said. “When you have a team like this, you have some pretty decent shooters and some good athletes and when they are doing that it makes it kind of difficult for the opponents to defend. They just can’t focus in on one guy.”
“I thought tonight we did a good job of moving the ball around and I thought our defense came up big for us. After giving up so many offensive rebounds in the second half I thought our defense picked it up in the second half. We started to play tough and matched their intensity and we were able to make some shots and pull away from them.”
The game has matched almost every game the Hornets have played this season where they have one half where they shoot the ball well and a half where they struggle getting the ball through the hoop. After a sub-par shooting performance in the first half the Hornets came out in the second half and shot 59 percent in the second half in scoring 44 points and pulling away from a determined Jackson State squad.
“We just have to continue to shoot it,” Jackson said. “You know the shot is always fickle and that is why we try to rely so much on our defense, but we just have to keep shooting. We are getting good looks at the basket and the shots were not falling early but we continued to stay on the path we were on and we were able to get some to fall. We are going to get in the gym and keep shooting.”
“We shot our free throws a lot better tonight. After going nine for 20 in our last game a lot of them went in tonight and that was good to see.”
ASU (6-5/2-0 SWAC) finished the game shooting 47 percent from the field. They also did a lot better on their three point field goals hitting six of 15 for 40 percent. At the free throw line ASU shot 75 percent knocking down 18 of 24.
The Hornets held Jackson State (3-12/1-1 SWAC) to 27 percent shooting from the field. The Tigers only managed to hit two of their 19 three point attempts, but did a good job at the free throw line hitting 18 of 25 (72%).
Kaven Bernard came off the bench for JSU and led the Tigers with a double-double. He had game-highs in points with 16 and in rebounds with 10.
ASU made a late run over the final 7:32 of the first half to go into the locker room with a 28-18 halftime lead. The Hornets trailed 14-11 until Rogers entered the game and proceeded to shoot the Hornets into the lead by scoring seven consecutive points and ASU led 18-14.
“He (Rogers) was a great scorer coming out of high school as you well know and we wanted to try and get him some looks,” Jackson said. “He is playing a dual role for us with LeFlore going out he is playing back up point to Jamel and he’s playing back up at two behind D-Rob (DeMarcus Robinson). He has his hands full, but he is a fast learner and he’s a competitor and he knows how to create shots for himself as well as his teammates and he did a really, really good job for us tonight.”
ASU’s defense picked up the pressure a little bit more only allowing the Tigers four points over the last 8:26 of the opening half. Neither team shot the ball very well as ASU finished shooting 38 percent from the field and JSU 21 percent.
Waters led ASU with 11 first-half points and Rogers finished with seven. Bernard came off the Tigers bench to score a team-high seven points for JSU. The win was
ASU’s third consecutive and ran their record to 5-0 playing in the Dunn-Oliver Acadome.
The Hornets will hit the road for the first time during conference play when they play at Arkansas-Pine Bluff Saturday, Jan. 10 at 7:30 p.m. Check with Game Day Central at bamastatesports.com for any live game day information.
