LORMAN, Miss. – The Alcorn State University women's basketball program held the Lady Rattlers to only 42 points, the lowest scoring output allowed by the Lady Braves to a division one opponent in three years en route to a 58-42 win.
The Lady Braves (4-6) have now defeated two non-conference division one foes in the same season for the first time since 2011-12 when the purple and gold beat Southeastern Louisiana plus Northwestern State in back-to-back contests.
Alcorn was fronted by junior
LaRae Rascoe, who had a season-best 19 points while senior
Jada Hargrove poured on an additional 13 points.
Junior
Jamaysha Bernard pulled down a season-high eight rebounds, tying the most by a Lady Brave in a game this season, while senior
Charisma Walker grabbed a season-high seven boards.
Freshman
Aja Wheeler became the third Alcorn player of the 2019-20 season to record five steals in a contest, pacing the team with five of the club's 19 on the afternoon.
Florida A&M (2-6) saw Shalaunda Burney-Robinson top the Lady Rattlers in points (10) and blocks (2) to go along with snatching six rebounds.
FAMU began the game by going ahead 5-3 but nine unanswered by Coach Pruitt's squad gave the home side a 12-5 advantage. The green and orange came charging back to end the frame, peeling off nine of the last ten points of the first quarter to take a slim 14-13 lead after ten minutes of action.
The first seven-and-a-half minutes of the second quarter was a defensive struggle for both teams as the two sides put only six combined points on the board. Alcorn edged Florida A&M nine to seven in the quarter as neither side hit double-figures with the Lady Braves going into the break ahead 22-21.
The purple and gold came out of the halftime locker room ready to rumble, going on a 13-2 surge to widen the gap to 12 at 35-23. Both the Lady Rattlers and Lady Braves played close to even the rest of the third as Alcorn outscored FAMU 10-8 as the purple and gold held a 14-point cushion into the final frame.
Coach Pruitt's Lady Braves extended its margin as wide as 18 points in the final frame, cruising to a 58-42 victory in which the defense locked the FAMU offense down throughout most of the day.
Alcorn gets a full week of preparation ahead of its next matchup against UAB at 2 p.m. on Sunday, December 15 inside the Davey L. Whitney Complex.
NOTES
- Alcorn improved its record to 6-1 all-time against Florida A&M.
- The Lady Braves had a huge advantage in the turnover battle as FAMU committed 45 turnovers while Alcorn surrendered only 22. The purple and gold converted 22 more points off of turnovers than the Lady Rattlers.
- Florida A&M was dismal from behind the three-point line, hitting just 1-of-16 (.063).
- FAMU controlled the rebounding department (52-31) but Alcorn's 19 steals to Florida A&M's nine negated the large deficit on the glass.
Quoting Alcorn head coach Courtney G. Pruitt
Opening statement:
"I think it shocked us that we came out to such a fast start, the young ladies just had to get their bearings but once they got their bearings we gained the lead to go into halftime and came out in the third quarter playing lights out. That's what we've been talking about and we discussed it during pregame, we got points in the half-court, points in our transition, now we've got to go back and fix the problems of missing layups. So you can see some improvement where we are utilizing the entire basketball court so we just want to continue to get better."
On Florida A&M outrebounding Alcorn by 21:
"We went to a small lineup for the majority of the game and our guards just weren't doing the job in regard to rebounding and we had been talking about that so its something we have to fix going into our next two games before we start conference. We've got to do a better job of rebounding the ball and getting our guards involved, we can't just rely on the one post player we have in the game."
On containing FAMU's Shalaunda Burney-Robinson out of the game late in the contest:
"We scouted on film that Robinson is a great rebounder and she's also a great mid-range shooter so we didn't want to let her get going and we wanted to make sure we put as much pressure on her as possible so we went in to put a smaller, faster defender on her. I was very proud of the way we played defense, we forced 45 turnovers so you can't complain, the girls are playing really good right now and we just need to fix some small stuff."
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