Jan. 7, 2006

Final Stats

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - With the success the Alabama State men's basketball program has enjoyed over the past five years, the term "rebuilding year" can be a tough pill to swallow for some of the ASU basketball faithful.

With a 74-70 loss to Mississippi Valley State Saturday afternoon at the Joe L. Reed Acadome, the Hornets fell to 0-3 in Southwestern Athletic Conference play for the first time in the school's 24-year run in the league.

But for head coach Lewis Jackson, the Hornets' 2-12 overall record is not as hard to deal with as the little things that are costing his team in close ball games.

"We had way too many turnovers," Jackson said. "We didn't make some easy shots around the basket. We had some breakdowns defensively. We couldn't make a couple of big stops when we needed them. We didn't hit some shots we needed to."

Senior forward Akeim Claborn didn't seem to have those problems, at least offensively, as he scored 24 points and grabbed 12 rebounds - both game highs. But for several stretches, the rest of the team had trouble putting the ball in the basket - which put the Hornets in a bigger hole.

"We dug ourselves a pretty big hole in the first half," Jackson said. "And we spent the rest of the night trying to fight our way out of it."

ASU trailed by as many as 15 points in the first half before heading to the locker room down 38-29. The Hornets turned the ball over 13 times, which led to 19 points for the Delta Devils.

Mississippi Valley (2-9, 2-0) led 50-37 with 13:33 remaining before the Hornets made their charge. In four minutes, the Bama State deficit was down to four points but ASU could not get over the hump.

You can't put yourself in that kind of a hole against good teams," Jackson said. "That's a good team. They did all the things they needed to down the stretch to win. We couldn't come up with the plays we needed."

A 3-pointer by Claborn with 12 seconds remaining brought the Hornets to within 72-70. But Stanford Speech hit two free throws - part of a 6-of-8 effort by the Delta Devils in the last 1:36 - to seal the victory.

Richard Lott came off the bench to score 13 points while Alexander Oliver and Andrew Hayles each finished with 10.