PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – In the 2018-19 season finale, the Alcorn State University women's basketball program ran into a hot shooting Prairie View A&M squad in a 90-61 decision at the William Nicks Building.
Even if the Lady Braves (4-26, 3-15 SWAC) had won, they needed help from Arkansas-Pine Bluff in order to make the SWAC Championships. The Golden Lions fell 82-63 at Mississippi Valley State.
PVAMU (16-12, 13-5 SWAC) shot 22-for-33 (.667) in the first half and 40-for-69 (.579) in the game. Alcorn was held to a 26-for-69 (.377) clip in the contest.
Junior
Charisma Walker led the Lady Braves with 15 points and seven rebounds off the bench. Junior
Toddriana Isler tallied 11 points and a pair of blocks in 35 minutes, and senior
De'Asia Brown recorded 10 points.
PVAMU was paced by Artavia Ford's 17 points. Shala Dobbins aided the attack with 15 points.
Isler scored the first bucket of the game, but PVAMU answered with a 9-0 run to lead early. A jumper by freshman
Diamond Hall and two free throws by Brown had Alcorn down 9-6 at the 5:19 mark. The Panthers responded by scoring the next six points, and extended their advantage to 23-9 at the end of the quarter.
PVAMU pushed its lead up to 32-12 with 8:03 remaining in the second, 49-24 at the half and 71-39 at the end of the third quarter.
The Lady Braves fought until the end and outscored the Panthers 22-19 in the fourth quarter. Walker scored 12 of her 15 points in the final period.
NOTES
- In conference games, the Lady Braves outscored the opposition 322-319 in the fourth quarter.
- Alcorn will finish the season as the top offensive rebounding team in the league. The Lady Braves pulled down 18 boards which was above their 16.4 per game average. Hall, Isler and Walker each secured three apiece.
- It was the final appearance in an Alcorn uniform for Brown. She ended her two-year career at Alcorn with 482 points, 132 rebounds, 76 assists and 31 steals. Brown notched 26 career double-figure scoring games and 22 this year. Her career-high was 27 points at MVSU on Feb. 16, 2019. She led the team in scoring this season with 12.3 points per game.
- Walker submitted her 12th double-figure scoring game of the year. She was 6-for-12 from the floor and neared her career-high of 18 points.
- Isler turned in her 12th double-digit scoring game of the season. She was 5-for-10 from the field. Isler finished the season as the team's leading rebounder with 6.5 per game.
Quoting Alcorn head coach Courtney G. Pruitt
Opening Statement
"It was tough from the start. We could not score. At halftime, both teams had taken the same amount of shots, but we couldn't get the ball to fall. That's also how it ended – they took 69 shots and made 40, but we only made 26 of our 69. We couldn't compete tonight because we shot it horribly. I felt like we were getting great attempts and we rebounded the ball well, but we couldn't throw it in the ocean."
On the program moving forward
"We have to go back to the drawing board. We only graduate one student-athlete, and we have a group of talented freshmen and sophomores that will return with more experience. We'll also have to recruit our tails off."
On reflecting back on the season
"Reflecting back, it started in August. We had kids who were unhappy who left the program before the season even started, and we worked so hard to recruit them and bring them here, only to have them leave by the third day. Then, mid-way through the season we lost a JUCO point guard because she said she's homesick and didn't enjoy being here. That was tough because it hurt our depth and we didn't have the options to sub in. We just worked with what we had. We started the conference season great with our win over Texas Southern. However,
Toddriana Isler got hurt in that game and we had to figure out how to play without her. We got blown out the next game, and we struggled for the next couple weeks. Then, when she did come back,
Kirdis Clark went out, and then
Charisma Walker went out. We couldn't keep anybody healthy and were at a low number of players the whole season. We started with 15 – two quit, and two at a time were injured which made it tough because we never had a consistent core group. We were always so short on numbers, it just didn't happen for us this year. It was a disappointing season, and this is my first time not making the conference tournament. It hurts, but as I said we need to go back to the drawing board and live to fight another day. We have to keep our heads up, recruit, keep our grades up and be prepared for next season."
#FearTheBrave
