PVAMU Shoots Hot Early, Holds Off Late Alcorn Rally; Braves Host MVSU Tuesday

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – Prairie View A&M went 8-for-15 from three-point range in the first half to build a lead and then held off a late surge by the Alcorn State University men's basketball program for a 66-60 decision Saturday at William J. Nicks Building.
 
The Braves (16-13, 13-5 SWAC) will enter the SWAC Championships as the No. 2 seed. They will host a first round game Tuesday against No. 7 Mississippi Valley State at 6 p.m. at the Davey L. Whitney Complex.
 
Alcorn trailed by as many as 17 points in the second half against the Panthers (13-19, 10-8 SWAC) and got the deficit down to five but couldn't complete the comeback. PVAMU ended the game with 10 three-pointers made.
 
Junior A.J. Mosby scored a team-high 19 points on 6-of-11 shooting. Senior Denzel Dulin tallied 12 points and seven rebounds, and junior Reginal Johnson posted 10 points and five rebounds.
 
The Panthers were guided by Zachary Hamilton's 23 points. Tevin Bellinger's aided the attack with 17 points.
 
PVAMU was up 10-5 early when it used an 8-0 spurt to extend the lead to 18-5 at the 13:33 mark. The Braves trailed 23-7 when freshman Maurice Howard made a lay-up and Mosby drained a three-pointer to make it 23-12 at the 10:49 mark.
 
After the Panthers went back up 26-12, junior Juwan Henderson and Johnson both hit three-pointers to cut the deficit to 26-18 with 8:50 remaining.
 
The next six minutes were even, but PVAMU scored the last four points in the final two minutes to take a 42-29 advantage into the break.
 
A pair of three-pointers by PVAMU's Hamilton extended the Panthers edge to 50-33 early in the second half.
 
The Braves responded with a 6-0 run which included an old-fashion three-point play by Johnson to trail 50-39 with 13:20 to go. A deep three-pointer by Mosby got it down to single-digits, 54-45, with 10:31 left.
 
After PVAMU scored the next four points to go up 13, Alcorn made a late push started by a put-back by freshman Tyler Carter. Howard followed with a three-pointer, and Mosby made a lay-up to cut the deficit to 58-52 at the 3:26 mark.
 
Though, the Panthers were able to get inside and score in the closing minutes to prevail. The Braves tried to make one last surge and got the deficit to five points with under five seconds left but ran out of time.
 
NOTES
- Alcorn and PVAMU split the season series. The Braves won the first meeting this year 66-55 at home on Jan. 4. The Braves have now won three of the last four against the Panthers.
 
- The Braves finished with a 13-5 conference record for the second year in a row.
 
- Alcorn will host the first round of the SWAC Championships at the Davey L. Whitney Complex where it was 10-2 this season. It's outscored the opposition 916-747 at home.
 
- Head coach Montez Robinson completed his second conference season and has a 26-10 league record. He's coached the Braves to back-to-back winning seasons in conference for the first time since 2001-02, 02-03.
 
- Alcorn's 16 wins overall are the most since 2001-02 when it won 20 games. That was also the last time the Braves had a winning season overall.
 
- Johnson has scored in double-figures in 27 of the last 28 games. He etched his 46th career double-figure scoring game.
 
- Mosby, who went three-for-six from beyond-the-arc, is now 23-for-44 (.523) from three-point range over the last seven games. He registered his 15th double-figure scoring game of the year. Mosby remained as the only Brave to start in every game this season.
 
- Dulin netted his 12th double-figure scoring game of the year. He scored at least eight points in 13 conference matches. Dulin's seven rebounds matched a career-high set at San Francisco on Nov. 30, 2016.
 
- Henderson notched a season-high five points off the bench.
 
- The Braves outscored the Panthers 28-22 in the paint and 22-10 off the bench.
 
Quoting Alcorn head coach Montez Robinson
Opening Statement
"We didn't guard well in the first half. We didn't do a good job of keeping guys in front of us and they were penetrating and kicking it out for open threes. When a team has eight three-pointers in a half it's going to be a tough night. We've got to do a better job of not giving up straight line drives. If we would have played the first half like we did the second – don't give up drives, contest everything, attack the shooters – then this would have been a different ball game. We came out and didn't take care of business in the first half."
 
On whether Thursday's loss at Texas Southern carried into tonight's game
"No, not at all. Every Division I team has quick turn arounds and we had to let it go. There's no excuses. I thought we had a good practice yesterday and good warm-ups before the game, but we just came out flat. If you take away the first four minutes of the game where we were turning it over and they were penetrating, it would have been different. But that's just the way it goes. We have to take better care of the ball and we're still having too many lapses."
 
On hosting the first round of the conference tournament Tuesday
"Well, first of all we need to go back and watch the first four minutes of this game tonight. We also want to watch the first four minutes of the Texas Southern game and compare it to this one. We need to go over a few things that we need to get better at. However, the second season is now over. We had our non-conference season, our conference season and now we have the postseason. We have to be ready and we have to be focused. I really want to say to all the Braves fans at home to come out and support us. We want to pack our gym. It's a 7,000 seat arena and we want to try and have 7,001 and have to turn the last person away."
 
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