Braves Come Up Short at Alabama State

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – A hot shooting night from Alabama State was too much to overcome for the Alcorn State University men's basketball program as the Hornets ended on top 82-62 Monday at Dunn-Oliver Acadome.
 
The Hornets (7-19, 7-7 SWAC) were 34-of-59 (.576) from the field. They limited the Braves (10-18, 6-9 SWAC) to a 23-of-56 (.411) mark including 3-of-16 (.188) from beyond-the-arc.
 
ASU was also able to force 19 turnovers defensively to snap Alcorn's three-game winning-streak.
 
Senior A.J. Mosby paced Alcorn with 18 points, five assists and four rebounds. Sophomore Yalen Reed also turned in a solider outing of 14 points and seven rebounds. Junior Dante Sterling ended with 11 points and six rebounds and logged a career-high 35 minutes.
 
ASU's Jacoby Ross scored a game-high 19 points to go along with seven rebounds.
 
The Braves led early 4-2 after layups by Sterling and Reed. The Hornets responded with an 11-0 run to go up 13-4 at the 14:27 mark. ASU took its biggest lead of the half 27-13 with 7:01 left.
 
Alcorn used a 9-0 spurt to get back in it, 27-22, after a jumper by Reed and a three-pointer by sophomore Maurice Howard with 4:42 remaining. Though, the Hornets closed the half strong which included a three-pointer by Ross at the buzzer to give ASU a 39-29 edge at the intermission.
 
The Braves got the deficit down to 46-40 after a jumper by sophomore Devon Brewer with 15:25 to go. Alcorn got as close as 52-48 at the 11:45 mark after a floater by Mosby, but couldn't get any closer. ASU quickly answered with an 8-0 run to push its lead up to 60-48 at the 9:43 mark.
 
The Hornets pulled away in the final six minutes.
 
The Braves will return home Saturday when they host Southern at 5:30 p.m. at the Davey L. Whitney Complex. Alcorn's final three regular season games are all at home.
 
NOTES
- The Braves are now 4-2 against the Hornets under head coach Montez Robinson. The teams split the season series this year after Alcorn won 81-64 at home on Jan. 22.
 
- In his third season, Robinson's SWAC record sits at 32-19. He's the reigning SWAC Coach of the Year winner.
 
- The Braves were 13-for-16 (.813) from the free throw line. Mosby was six-for-seven and Sterling was four-for-four. Mosby entered the game leading the league in free throw percentage with a .898 clip.
 
- Mosby has scored at least 18 points in five consecutive matches. He tallied his 39th career double-figure scoring game, 23rd this season and 10th in the last 11 games. Mosby is up to 751 career points in two years.
 
- Reed notched at least 14 points and seven rebounds for the second game in a row. It was his eighth career double-digit outing and sixth this season. Reed was six-for-eight from the field and also swatted a block.
 
- Sterling netted his 16th double-figure scoring game and fourth in his last five games. His six rebounds matched his career-high set four times.
 
- The Braves continued to play without SWAC Preseason Player of the Year Reginal Johnson. He broke his leg at Tulane on Nov. 29 and has not played since. Alcorn was also without starting senior guard Avery Patterson due to a high ankle sprain.
 
Quoting Alcorn head coach Montez Robinson
Opening Statement
"I actually thought we played solid for the most part, but it was like the rim had a lid on it for us. We were getting open shots within the offense the same way we had been the last four or five games, but they just wouldn't fall for us tonight. We didn't do a good job of taking care of the ball tonight and that's going to be the most glaring thing from this game. Ultimately, the game was won and lost tonight with turnovers and we gave up too many live ball opportunities."
 
On keep close early in the second half
"We had our opportunities but we couldn't close them out. Every time it looked like we'd be back in it, we'd turn it over and give up a layup or open three-pointer. We kept having to try and dig out of bigger and bigger holes, and eventually we couldn't get out of it. It was all on us and it was self-inflicted. We made too many poor decisions and bad passes."
 
On the cold three-point shooting
"We're obviously a team that makes seven or eight three-pointers a night, so when you look and see that we only made three it hurts. We're a team that makes shots and we had open looks in both halves, but they weren't going in tonight. When you get open looks, you have to make teams pay for it. They made us pay for their open looks but we couldn't capitalize on ours."
 
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