Braves Down Southern 81-59 to Advance to SWAC Title Game

HOUSTON – Double-doubles by senior Marquis Vance and junior Reginal Johnson guided the Alcorn State University men's basketball program to a big second half and an 81-59 victory over Southern in the semifinals of the SWAC Championships on Friday evening at the Toyota Center.
 
Second-seeded Alcorn (18-13, 13-5 SWAC) used a 13-0 run early in the second half to take control and never looked back. Third-seeded Southern (15-18, 10-8 SWAC) could only come as close as a 16-point margin in the final nine minutes.
 
Vance, an All-Conference First-Team selection, registered 14 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Johnson, who was named to the All-Conference Second-Team, tallied a game-high 18 points and 10 rebounds.
 
Also in double-figures for the Braves, junior A.J. Mosby recorded 15 points and freshman Maurice Howard finished with 13 which included a trio of three-pointers.
 
The Jags were led by Shawn Prudhomme who scored 16 points. Jared Sam ended with a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds
 
The Braves trailed 7-1 early when they used an 8-0 run, capped by a three-pointer and lay-up by Howard to go up 9-7 at the 14:37 mark. After the Jags came back to take a 14-11 lead, a jumper by senior DeAndre Davis and a pair of free throws by Vance put Alcorn back in front 15-14 with 11:41 remaining.
 
After the next eight minutes were even, the Braves were able to get an edge after a put-back by Johnson and free throws from freshman Tyler Carter and senior Denzel Dulin to go up 32-26 with 3:37 to go. A three-pointer and jumper by Mosby extended the lead to 37-28 with 2:13 left.
 
Alcorn carried a 43-33 advantage into the intermission. Johnson already had 14 points and eight rebounds at that point.
 
The Braves used a big 13-0 spurt to take control early in the second half – nine of the 13 points were from Vance as he was dominating inside to make it a 58-36 score at the 14:44 mark.
 
The Jags tried to chip away at the deficit and scored five straight points, but Alcorn still led 65-49 with 8:08 remaining. The Braves quickly responded with an 7-2 run to go back up 72-51 with under five minutes left.
 
Alcorn took its biggest lead of the night 76-51 after Mosby buried a three-pointer with 3:42 to go which was the nail in the coffin.
 
The championship game is slated for Saturday at 5:15 p.m. on ESPNU. The Braves will look to knock off top-seeded Texas Southern.
 
NOTES
- Alcorn will be playing for its 24th championship and eighth conference tournament title on Saturday.
 
- The Braves are looking to win the conference tournament for the first time since 2001-02.
 
- Alcorn completed a three-game season-sweep over the Jaguars. The Braves won the first meeting this year at home 74-64 on Jan. 28, and the second meeting on the road 68-67 on Feb. 25.
 
- The Braves improved to 15-2 this season when leading at half and 8-0 when holding the opposition to under 60 points.
 
- Alcorn head coach Montez Robinson, the SWAC Coach of the Year, coached the team to its 18th win overall which is the most since 2001-02 when it won 20 games. That was also the last time the Braves had a winning season overall. Robinson is 26-10 in two years in the SWAC.
 
- It marked the third time this season that Alcorn had two players record double-doubles. Johnson and Mosby did it against Rust College on Dec. 22, 2016, and Johnson and Vance did it at Grambling on Jan. 9.
 
- Vance notched his 70th career double-figure scoring game and 20th this year. It was also his 11th career double-double and fifth this season. Vance is up to 1,297 career points, 797 rebounds and 209 assists.
 
- Johnson has scored in double-figures in 29 of the last 30 games and 48 times in his career. He posted his eighth career double-double and sixth this season.
 
- Mosby etched his 17th double-figure scoring game this season. He remained as the only Brave to start in every game this year.
 
- Howard scored his eighth double-figure scoring game this year. He went three-for-four from beyond-the-arc. It was the fourth time that he made at least three long-range shots in a game this season.
 
- The Braves limited the Jags to just a 2-for-19 (.105) mark from three-point territory and 0-for-11 in the second half. It came after Alcorn led the league in three-point field goal percentage defense with a .287 clip.
 
- Alcorn outrebounded Southern 47-38. The Braves also held a 36-28 edge in points in the paint, 17-9 in points off turnovers and 39-22 in points off the bench.
 
Quoting Alcorn head coach Montez Robinson (SWAC Coach of the Year)
Opening Statement
"I was really pleased with the effort tonight. We really wanted to jump right on them tonight and I thought we did that. Our guys really paid attention to detail and did a lot of the little things right tonight."
 
On limiting Southern to such a low percentage from three-point range
"Our three-point defense is definitely something that we really focus on. Whether we're in man or in zone, we always tell our guys to contest everything and make everything tough. We want to make them play between you and the basket. We just want to make the other team shoot tough shots and we'll play the percentages."
 
On what was working so well in the second half
"Well we've been getting up by 10 points on teams all year. However, we've always had three or four-minute lulls where teams would come back and make it close or tie it. We've just been preaching non-stop that when we get them down, we have to continue to pile it on. We can't relax and we have to stay focused. We always say that when things get easy that's when you have to concentrate even more. We just didn't want to let them back in the game tonight."
 
On what changes Alcorn made based on the previous two meetings against Southern
"We didn't really change much. We won the first two games so there wasn't a reason to make big changes. We made little tweaks in our zone, but we stuck to our game plan and really executed it. We want teams to adjust to us, not us adjust to them."
 
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