MONTOGMERY—Alabama State University men's basketball team has spent the past week mulling over last weekend's two conference road losses and are ready to get back in action.  The Hornets will host Prairie View A&M Saturday, Jan. 28 at 5 p.m. in the Dunn-Oliver Acadome.
 
The Hornets have hit the practice floor early this week and have been working on correcting the mistakes that were made in the two losses last weekend.
 
“We have been concentrating on the things we have not been doing well,” head coach Lewis Jackson said.  “It really boils down to our defense and we are certainly trying to get better shots offensively.  We just need to get some shots to go down.”
 
“We feel we certainly let one get away at Alcorn and we could have competed more efficiently at Southern and could have possibly won that game as well.  We actually got back into that game and had consecutive turnovers and missed a ton of free throws.  We are just concentrating on doing the things that we have not been doing well lately and hopefully that will push us back on the “W” side.”
 
ASU (7-12/4-3 SWAC) and PVAMU (8-12/4-3 SWAC) enter the game with the same conference record and are tied for fourth in the conference.
 
The Panthers have not played since last Saturday evening when they dropped a home game to league-leading Mississippi Valley State 81-57.
 
The Hornets defense has had trouble in the past two games where the two opponents combined to shoot over 50 percent from the field.  It will not be any easier against PVAMU as they come into Montgomery as the conference's second leading scoring team averaging 63.1 points per game.
 
What makes that fact so interesting is they have no one averaging in double digits.  Jourdan DeMuynck comes off the bench and leads the team in scoring at 9.8 points per game.  Demondre Chapman is next at 9.2, while Ryan Gesiakowski averages 8.9 and Louis Munks averages 8.7 points per game.
 
While the Hornets hope to have leading scorer Kenderek Washington (14.1 ppg) back for the game, ASU will rely on Tramaine Butler (12.0) and Ivory White (9.7) to provide some scoring punch.
 
White has four double-doubles on the season and Philip Crawford has played well in spurts since moving into the starting lineup.  He is averaging 9.2 points and 5.7 rebounds per game.
 
If Washington can't play, ASU will turn to Stephawn Brown to continue his role replacing Washington. In the three games he has started, Brown is averaging nine points, five rebounds and one steal per game.
 
“In our previous two ball games we lost we got some shots and I thought they were pretty good looks,” Jackson stated.  “In the Alcorn game they all fell as we shot 50 percent from the field and 58 percent from the three point line, but we just have to focus more on rebounding and keeping guys out of the lane.”