Game Notes
MONTGOMERY—The hottest team in the Southwestern Athletic Conference will visit ASU as Texas Southern makes its annual journey to Dunn-Oliver Acadome to face Alabama State University. Game time has been set for 7:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25.
The Tigers (14-14/13-2 SWAC) enter the game winners of nine consecutive games and 14 of their past 15. TSU has taken over as the top offense in the conference averaging 69.7 points per game. A lot of those points come on three point field goals as TSU also leads the conference in three point field goals made per game with nine.
That was never any more evident than when the two teams met back on Jan. 28 in Houston as TSU connected on 16 of 28 three point field goals in a 97-65 Tiger victory.
ASU will need to play better defense this time around against TSU and will also need to play better than they did the second half of the game against Prairie View this past Saturday night when the Panthers shot 48 percent from the field in that second half to come back from a five-point halftime deficit to defeat the Hornets.
“We stopped communicating on defense and started giving up the open shots,” Head Coach
Lewis Jackson said. “We can't do that and think we can beat an outstanding shooting team. Although we out rebounded them our defense just went away and we gave them too many open looks at the basket.”
Omar Strong leads the balanced Tiger attack averaging 16.9 points per game. Ryamond Penn, an Oklahoma State transfer, averages 12.4 points and leads the SWAC in assists with 154. Fred Sturdivant averages 10.4 ponts and is the team's leading rebounder averaging 8.1 per contest.
Joshua Freelove averages 13.6 points per game to lead the Hornets and
Phillip Crawford is next at 12 points per game and a team-high 5.8 rebounds per game.
Jamel Waters continues to lead the team in both assists (92) and in steals (50).
ASU needs to have Crawford back at full strength. He was unable to practice at all last week due to a sickness and it showed as he only scored one point and had seven rebounds against Prairie View.
“Phil was sick all week and really didn't get to practice and we didn't know if he was going to come out and play and he tried to get in there,” Jackson said. “Phil just gives us a really strong presence around the basket and is our best rebounder and it showed with him not being at full strength.”
It has been a long time since the Hornets had a turnover problem, but against PVAMU they committed 22 turnovers and it was just too much to overcome. It is a problem they cannot let happen against the high-scoring Tigers.
“We have to take care of the basketball,” Jackson said. “We try to do too much with the ball and try to do things that are just unnecessary instead of making the easy pass and these are things that are keeping us from winning ball games.”
The game will be a special night for six seniors who will be honored before the game.
Ryan Watts and
Stephawn Brown have both already graduated with Watts now enrolled in graduate school at ASU.
Anthony Price and
Josh Mason have been sidelined for most of the season but will also be honored before the game as will
Shawntez Patterson and
Phillip Crawford, both, two year members of the Hornets' program.
