Final Boxscore
LORMAN, Miss. -- After building a 20-point halftime lead, the Alabama State University men's basketball team fought off a late-charging Alcorn State squad for a 69-62 victory at the Davey L. Whitney Complex Saturday night.
Sophomore
Tramaine Butler finished with 17 points leading the Hornets (7-10, 4-2 SWAC) to their third consecutive victory. ASU also got 10 points each from
Ivory White and
Byron Walker.
Looking for its first win of the year, Alcorn (0-19, 0-6) got 16 points from Johnathan Boyd including 12 during the Braves' 40-point second half rally. Ian Francis tallied 11 points and 10 rebounds in the loss.
“First of all I want to give Alcorn's team credit for continuing to battle all night long,” said ASU head coach
Lewis Jackson. “Our guys worked to build a lead, but we didn't handle the lead and their pressure very well. Any win on the road is an accomplishment so we will take this one even though it wasn't the prettiest victory.”
The Hornets rushed out to a quick 10-3 lead in the first three minutes of the game with five different ASU players getting in the scoring column. Alabama State pushed its advantage to double digits, 18-8, following a pair of
Byron Walker free throws at the 12:25 mark.
ASU turned things up on the defensive end holding the Braves scoreless for over six minutes. During the defensive push, the Hornets outscored Alcorn 11-0 in building a 32-13 lead with 6:12 remaining in the period. The two squads battled back-and-forth over the rest of the half as Bama State carried a 42-22 advantage into the halftime break.
Alcorn used a 10-3 surge at the start of the second half to cut into the ASU lead. The Hornets then answered with a 9-3 run of their own to regain a comfortable lead. However, ASU went cold from the floor for a four minute span midway through the period and the Braves capitalized on the drought scoring seven straight points to pull within 11, 54-43, with 7:57 left to play.
After pushing its lead back to 16, Alabama State looked ready to close the game out but Alcorn posted a 9-0 run to close the deficit to just six points, 63-57, with 2:09 remaining. Boyd connected on back-to-back three-pointers to cap the rally for the Braves.
A pair of ASU steals turned into fastbreak baskets giving the Hornets some breathing room in the closing minutes. Alcorn was able to get as close as five points in the final minute but
A.J. Spencer made a pair of free throws with 38 seconds on the clock to secure the victory for ASU.
Alabama State concludes its SWAC road trip Monday against Southern University in Baton Rouge, La. The ASU-SU game will be televised live on ESPNU at 8 p.m.
