Game Notes
LORMAN, Miss.—The Alabama State men's basketball team will look to get back into the win column at Alcorn State Monday February 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Both the Hornets and Braves are coming off loss with and with both teams within a game of each other, this game takes on a important game as the teams look to play their way into a higher seed for the upcoming conference tournament.
ASU (8-18/6-7 SWAC) lost a hard fought 58-49 game at league-leading Southern University which stopped a modest two game winning streak for the Hornets. Alcorn (9-20/7-7 SWAC) lost a home game 72-65 to Alabama A&M which has them one half game in front of ASU with five games remaining.
Neither team has any turnover time to prepare for the game, but the one difference is ASU must make the trip from Baton Rouge to Alcorn while trying to get ready for the game and work on short comings from the Southern game.
“We have to let this game with Southern go and get ready for another tough battle,” Head Coach
Lewis Jackson said. “You know when you get down to Alcorn it is a tough place to win. We have to go in and play with a lot more poise over the full course of the game and not in spurts so we give ourselves and opportunity to win down the stretch.”
ASU will look to continue to ride off the recent success of senior
Phillip Crawford. He had his third consecutive double-double against Southern with 22 points and 12 rebounds. It was his fourth double-double in the last five games. Over that time frame Crawford is averaging 23.5 points and 13.5 rebounds per game.
He has pushed his season average up to 12.5 points and 5.6 rebounds per game while still shooting over 55 percent from the field and 70 percent from the free throw line.
Joshua Freelove had 12 points against Southern and continues to be ASU's leading scorer at 13.2 points per game. Freshman Jamal Waters has 89 assists on the season and 48 steals, both team highs.
Alcorn State has three double digit scorers led by Marquiz Baker's 16.2 points per game. LeAntwan Luckett is next at 13.1 and Anthony Nieves is averaging 12.2 points per game. Baker also leads the team in rebounding at 4.2 per game and Luckett has a team-high 66 assists.
The two teams met in Montgomery back on Jan. 21 with the Hornets pulling out a thrilling 49-46 win. Alcorn led 30-24 at halftime, but the Hornets turned up the defense in the second half holding the visitors to just 16 points and 21 percent shooting.
Joshua Freelove led the Hornets with 18 points and
Bobby Brown added 14 and completed a double-double with a game-high 10 rebounds.
Baker scored a game-high 21 points for Alcorn State and Luckett added 12. The winner of the game will be in fourth place in the conference standings and will be in good shape for the second or third seeding in the SWAC Tournament.
