MONTGOMERY—Alabama State University men's basketball team will conclude their season-long three-game home stand when they host rival Alabama A&M University Saturday, Jan. 14 at 5 p.m.
 
The Hornets are 1-1 on the current home stand and can ill afford to drop another home conference game so early in the season.  The Hornets are tied for third in the conference with a 3-1 record and stand 6-10 overall.
 
The Bulldogs have struggled early under first-year head coach Willie Hayes with a 1-3 conference record and 3-10 overall.  Their lone conference win was a narrow three-point win (65-62) over Arkansas-Pine Bluff.  Hayes may be in his first season as the head coach, but spent the previous 17 seasons as an assistant on the Bulldogs staff.
 
“When a team has been with a coach for a long time they begin to take on the personality of the coach and Willie Hayes, who is a great guy and has been doing a great job, has been doing pretty much the same thing they have been doing in the past,” head coach Lewis Jackson said.  “They are going to get out and run, they will play man and press.  So we expect them to play pretty much the way they have played over the years and we have to be able to handle the things they do.”
 
The two teams have met 101 times on the court with the Hornets winning 73 times.  Last season AAMU pulled away late for a 75-60 win in Normal while the return trip to Montgomery gave the Hornets an 82-68 victory.  The two teams met a third time, in the Southwestern Athletic Conference Tournament, which the Hornets won 81-61 in the first game of the tournament.  In fact, since the 2000-01 season, the Hornets have won 21 of the 28 games played between the two teams.
 
Once again, the Hornets defense must face one of the top scorers in the conference as Casey Canty visits the Acadome with a 15.2 points per game average which is second in the SWAC.  Jeremy Crutcher is tied with ASU's Ivory White at 14 in the SWAC in scoring at 10 points per game.
 
Scoring has been down in the conference as a whole this season, but AAMU is second in the SWAC averaging 61.9 points per game.  The Hornets are not too far behind.  Even though they are sixth in the conference in scoring they are only 2.2 points per game behind AAMU, averaging 59.7.
 
Kenderek Washington continues to lead ASU in scoring at 14.1 points per outing.  He has scored in double digits in 13 of the team's 16 games.  Tramaine Butler continues his assault on becoming the next 1,000 point scorer for the Hornets.  He has 903 career points and is averaging 11.8 this season.  Ivory White is averaging 10 points per game, which is amazing since he is averaging less than eight shots per game.
 
“This game is in no stretch as big as it is in football, but in the basketball arena it is a big game,” Jackson said.  “Number one it is our next game and a conference game and number two it is Alabama A&M.  It is an in-state rivalry that has gone on for years and years.  It is one the players look forward to because it will be sold out in here on Saturday and it is one we have to find ourselves in because the records go out the window and the teams will go out there and battle it out and see who can get the bragging rights for that particular game.”

The game will be broadcast live on WVAS and can be watched live on SWAC TV.