"This was a big win for this team," Jackson said.  "All of the teams in these last few are ahead of us in the conference race and we can continue to make a difference coming down to the end of the season."
 
Corvon Butler scored a career-high 19 points on seven-of-10 shooting and grabbed nine rebounds in the win.  The other inside player Tony Armstrong had a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds, while Glenn Hollaway came off the bench to contribute with four points and four rebounds as the Hornets big men out played Southern's post players even though the visitors boasted three 6'-9" players and one 6'-8".
 
"Those guys (bigs) did a great job in this game.  We let them out play us earlier and fouled them a lot and put them on the line, but we were able to do some things to help against their size," Jackson said.
 
ASU's leading scorer Jamel Waters, was off on his shot tonight, but did some other things to help the team.  He scored 12 points which is three below his average, but had a game-high six assists and four rebounds from his guard position.
 
The Hornets finished the game shooting 45 percent from the field and held the SWAC's top scoring offense to 68 points and 40 percent shooting.
 
Adrian Rodgers finished with a game-high 22 points on nine of 20 shooting and Chris Hyder finished with 13 and Trelun Banks had 12.
 
Southern's big man Jared Sam was held to nine points, but he did have a game-high 12 rebounds.
 
ASU out rebounded Southern 42-20 and forced the visitors into a very uncharacteristic 12 turnovers, while only committing nine.
 
"I thought our defense played very well against this team," Jackson said.  "They got some jump and shoot baskets there late in the game, but overall we did a pretty good job.  I was glad with the energy in the game and it showed when we were on the defensive end of the court."
 
ASU took a 39-33 lead into the locker room at halftime after holding the Jags to 39 percent shooting and forcing eight turnovers.  ASU shot 42 percent from the field and Armstrong led the way with eight points while Waters added seven.
 
Banks had reached double digits in the first 20 minutes and had 10 points heading into the second 20 minutes.  Rodgers, who was coming off a career-high 33 points in Southern's last outing had eight.
 
The Hornets will be back home Monday when they play host to Alcorn State.  Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. and can be listened to on the ASU Hornets Sports Network.