Braves Win 11th Straight with Dramatic 68-67 Victory over Southern

BATON ROUGE – Clinching a top-two seed at the SWAC Tournament and winning their 11th consecutive game, the Alcorn State University men's basketball program came out on top 68-67 over Southern on Saturday at the F.G. Clark Activity Center.
 
The Braves (16-11, 13-3 SWAC) were clinging to a one-point lead when they forced Southern's (14-15, 10-6 SWAC) Trelun Banks to shoot a contested mid-range jumper with two seconds left that was off the mark. Senior Marquis Vance grabbed the rebound and was fouled.
 
The Jags had one last chance after securing a rebound and calling timeout with 0.6 seconds remaining after the front end of a one-and-one attempt was no good, but Alcorn did not allow them to get a shot off as they had to go the full court.
 
The win was also Alcorn's sixth in a row on the road.
 
Junior A.J. Mosby led the way with 19 points and seven rebounds. He was 7-for-13 from the field and 5-for-10 from long-range. Junior Reginal Johnson, the reigning SWAC Player of the Week winner, notched 11 points and six rebounds off the bench. Vance finished with nine points and six rebounds.
 
SU was guided by Shawn Prudhomme who scored a game-high 25 points. He was the only Jaguar in double-figures.
 
The Jags jumped out to a 14-8 lead early, but a pair of jumpers by Vance and a dunk by senior DeAndre Davis tied it at 14 at the 12:17 mark. The Braves trailed 19-18 when SU went on a 7-0 run to leap in front 26-18 with 7:01 left.
 
A three-pointer by freshman Maurice Howard cut the deficit to 32-29 with 2:07 remaining, but the Jags scored the last four points of the half to take a 38-31 advantage into the intermission.
 
Alcorn wasted little time in the second half and quickly knotted it up 38-38 after a jumper by senior Denzel Dulin and five points from Mosby. A three-pointer by Mosby put the Braves in front 41-40 with 17:58 to go.
 
Tied at 48, the Braves used a 12-2 spurt to seemingly take control 60-50 with 10:43 left. The run included three-pointers by Howard, Mosby and Johnson.
 
However, the Jags fired back with a big 10-0 run to tie the game 60-60 with 6:10 remaining after getting baskets in the paint.
 
The Braves were down 64-63 when Davis hit a huge three-pointer to leap back ahead 66-64 at the 3:40 mark – it ended up being the shot that put Alcorn up for good. After a stop defensively, Johnson hit a tough runner in the paint to go up by four with 2:44 left.
 
The Jags didn't go down easy and made it a one-point game after Prudhomme made a three-pointer with 1:33 remaining. After both team's exchanged missed three-pointers, the Braves had the ball up one with 43 seconds left. Alcorn ran the game clock down to 11 seconds before attempting a jumper that was off the mark which led to the final sequence.
 
The game featured 10 ties and six lead changes. Alcorn handed Southern just its second conference loss of the season.
 
The Braves will have Monday off. They return to the floor Thursday for a first-place showdown at Texas Southern at 7:30 p.m.
 
NOTES
- The 11-game winning-streak and six-game road streak are both the seventh-longest active streaks in the nation. It's the most consecutive games Alcorn has won as a program since 1998-99 when it won 12 in a row. The 11-game spurt is the fourth-longest in program history.
 
- The Braves completed the season-sweep over Southern for the first time since 2010-11. Alcorn won the first meeting at home 74-64 as Johnson scored 20 points and the Braves drained a season-high 12 three-pointers.
 
- The last time Alcorn won a one-point game on the road was Jan. 20, 2007 when it beat Alabama A&M 59-58.
 
- Head coach Montez Robinson improved his conference record to 26-8 in two seasons.
 
- The seven-point halftime deficit was Alcorn's largest overcome for a win this year.
 
- Johnson has scored at least 11 points in 25 of the last 26 games. It marked his 44th career double-figure scoring game.
 
- Mosby is now 20-for-36 (.556) from three-point range over the last six games. He posted his second-highest scoring game of his career. Mosby has tallied six double-figure scoring games in his last nine outings and 14 this season. He remained as the only Brave to start in every game this year.
 
- Davis entered the game ranked sixth in the conference in field goal percentage in league games (.574) and will improve it after going three-for-five from the field.
 
Quoting Alcorn head coach Montez Robinson
Opening Statement
"This game was definitely a gut-check. Our team continues to play hard and fight through adversity. It's amazing what happens with a team when nobody cares about who gets the credit. We found the hot hand again tonight and rode it in the second half with A.J. Mosby. He took big, gutsy shots but that's what we needed him to do. We also rebounded the ball well tonight in the second half. We were down big in rebounding margin at the half and only ended down 34-29 for the game. Overall though, this game was just a gut-check and we had guys make big shots."
 
On going up by 10 in the second half but losing the lead right back
"Well they got their comeback started with a banked three-pointer. It was a fade-away three-pointer and that sort of changed the momentum. We contested and challenged their shots, and we battled through adversity. It was a tough win but we needed it. I'm exciting with how our guys are responding right now and just continue to fight."
 
On DeAndre Davis' three-pointer late in the second half
"DeAndre can shoot the ball. He doesn't shoot a lot of them, but if you look at his percentage he makes about half of them. He's a smart basketball player. It's hard to guard him because of his size and it forces their big-guy to come out from underneath. I don't think they were expecting him to shoot it, but he didn't think twice and buried it."
 
Closing Statement
"We'll enjoy this win, but really the only thing on our mind right now is the next one. We can't control anything but our games and we'll continue to focus on the game in front of us. I haven't really looked at Texas Southern yet because I've been concentrating on each game one at a time. We lost to TSU by two points in the first conference game of the season and it was DeAndre Davis' first game back from injury. We're a different team now and we're playing with a lot more confidence and a lot more poise. The coaches will start preparing for the game tomorrow. This is what you live for as a college basketball player where you're in a situation where you control your own destiny."
 
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