HOUSTON, Texas – Jamel Waters led a trio of Hornets in double digit scoring with 16 points, but it was not enough as Alabama State fell to a hot-shooting Texas Southern team 80-65.
TSU (10-11/7-1 SWAC) came into the game only averaging 4.8 three point field goals made per game and was only hitting 28 percent of their threes, but tonight they blistered the nets with 10 threes and hit 56 percent of them.
“They came in to this game and were on fire from the three point line,” Head Coach Lewis Jackson said. “They did a lot of driving and we dropped back into the lane and they were throwing up shots and going in. Our defense was really off tonight.”
ASU (11-6/7-1 SWAC) had their eight game winning streak snapped with the loss and in the process picked up their first conference loss of the season and are now even with Texas Southern with the one loss in the conference.
The Hornets stayed true to their script they have in most every game this season where they had one hot shooting half and one cold shooting one, and tonight the 35 percent shooting in the second half doomed the Hornets as TSU shot 54 percent and finished 55 percent for the game while ASU finished shooting 43.
“We were just stoned cold and couldn’t get anything to fall around the basket,” Jackson said. “We had open looks at the basket we just couldn’t get shots to fall and that happens to you sometime but you have to make shots on the road.”
Bobby Brown and Maurice Strong joined Waters in double digits with 11 points each. Strong had a double-double in the game finishing with a game-high 11 rebounds. Waters finished with a game-high seven assists and two steals to go along with his points.
“We couldn’t get anything going offensively tonight,” Jackson said. “We missed Wendell in the first half after picking up two fouls in the first 70 seconds of the game and we thought we could get Luther (Page) in there and get him going, but we couldn’t get it going.”
“In the second half we kept going inside, but we just could not hit shots. We had a lot of great looks and if we could have hit some shots the outcome may have been different. They were more aggressive and brought it to us, but those threes they hit there in the second half was the difference.”
TSU’s guards led the Tigers offense as Madarious Gibbs finished with a game-high 24 points. Malcolm Riley had 17 points and Chris Thomas, TSU’s leading scorer coming into the game, finished with 10.
TSU shot a blistering 55 percent in the opening half in building a 41-34 halftime lead. Thomas and Gibbs scored 10 to lead the Tigers. TSU also out rebounded the Hornets 19-13 with six of those being offensive rebounds and leading to nine second chance points.
ASU did not shoot the ball so bad finishing with 50 percent shooting in the opening 20 minutes. Waters led the way with 12 and Steve Rogers came off the bench to add seven.
The difference was TSU’s ability to hit four of their nine three point attempts and hit three of six free throws, while ASU scored two three point field goals in their four attempts and only had one free throw attempt which it did not hit.
ASU will continue the current Texas road trip when they play at Prairie View A&M Monday, Feb. 2 at 7:30 p.m. Listen to the live action on HornetVision at bamastatesports.com.
