Braves Drop Conference Opener Despite Encouraging Second Half

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – Trailing by 24 midway through the first half, the Alcorn State University men's basketball program showed a lot of fight in the second to get the deficit down to seven, but Prairie View A&M finished on top for an 84-70 decision Saturday at the William Nicks Building.
 
Alcorn (4-8, 0-1 SWAC) fell behind 31-7 in the first half, but came back to make it a 69-62 game with 6:18 remaining in the second. Though, the Panthers (5-9, 1-0 SWAC) were able to hold off the surging Braves with a run in the end to stay ahead.
 
PVAMU won both the SWAC regular season and SWAC Tournament last season and was picked to win again this year in the SWAC Preseason Poll.
 
The Braves were paced by seniors Maurice Howard and Corey Tillery who poured in 17 points apiece. Freshman Dominic Brewton turned in his best game with a career-high 15 points off the bench. Junior Kobe Wilson secured a game-high 10 rebounds.
 
The Panthers garnered 21 points and seven rebounds from Gerard Anderson. SWAC Preseason Player of the Year Devonte Patterson ended with 19 points, six assists and five rebounds.
 
Alcorn outrebounded PVAMU 28-22, which led to an 11-3 edge in second chance points.
 
PVAMU opened the game on a 7-0 run. Alcorn's first bucket of the game came on a fast-break jumper by Tillery. Though, the Panthers extended their advantage to 21-5 at the 14:48 mark, and took their largest lead of the half 31-7 with 11:38 remaining.
 
The Braves started knocking down field goals late in the half, as a lay-up by Tillery trimmed it to 37-19, and a fast-break dunk by Brewton cut the deficit to 39-24 with 2:27 to go. The final basket of the frame came on a leftwing three-pointer by Tillery as Alcorn trailed 44-27 at the break.
 
In the second half, Howard and junior Troymain Crosby drilled threes on back-to-back possessions to make it a 66-52 game with 10:12 to go.
 
The Braves kept firing away, and got the deficit into single-figures 68-59 after Andrews nailed a long-range shot with 7:43 left. It a 7-0 run. A pair of free throws by Tillery had Alcorn down 69-62 with 6:18 remaining.
 
However, the Panthers made enough plays down the stretch to hang on. They used a late 8-1 run to stay ahead 79-65 with two minutes to go and put it out of reach.
 
The Braves will remain in Houston on Saturday when they square off with Texas Southern in a 7:30 p.m. contest at H&PE Arena. The game can be heard live for free on 91.7 FM or wprl.org with Charles Edmond on the call.
 
NOTES
- Alcorn is now 73-37 all-time against Prairie View A&M.
 
- The Braves have been a second half team all season and have outscored the opposition 467-424 in the second.
 
- Alcorn head coach Montez Robinson dropped to 39-34 against the SWAC. He's in his fifth season.
 
- The Braves entered the game leading the conference in three-point percentage (.370), three-pointers made per game (9.8) and free throw percentage (.724). They were right on par with a .370 percentage, 10 threes made and a .750 (18-24) free throw percent on the night.
 
- Howard notched his 52nd career double-figure scoring game and eighth in a row. He was 3-for-7 from beyond-the-arc and came into the game leading the league in three-point percentage (.388) and threes made per game (2.9). He's up to 1,119 career points.
 
- Tillery posted his ninth double-digit scoring game this year and fifth in a row. He was a perfect 7-for-7 from the free throw line.
 
- Brewton surpassed his previous career-high of eight points, set in the team's last outing at Santa Clara.
 
- Senior Deshaw Andrews submitted 11 points. He was 6-for-6 from the charity stripe for his 20th career double-figure scoring game and eighth this season.
 
- Wilson pulled down his fifth career double-figure rebounding game and third this year.
 
Quoting Alcorn head coach Montez Robinson
Opening Statement
"The first 10 minutes of the game we dug ourselves a large hole against a quality team that plays as hard as Prairie View does. It was like we came out to play with lotion on our hands tonight. We trailed 31-7 and it was because of turnovers. Prairie View had 21 points off our 16 turnovers in the first half. To have that many turnovers is inexcusable. We started to do a better job near the end of the first half, but we started the game like we didn't know it was a conference game. I thought we were ready. I thought the warm-up went well, our practice went well and everything was on-point leading up to the game. We just laid an egg in the first 10 minutes and we let it get out of hand. Though, I commend the effort of our guys in the second half and the way they fought back. We outplayed them in the second half, we just dug too big of a hole in the first."
 
On what Prairie View was doing that was giving Alcorn trouble early-on
"Prairie View tried to take away our best players, but we knew that coming in. Our plan was to make the extra pass. We had so much trouble making that extra pass in the first half though because we were turning it over. We tried to stay aggressive, but got called for some charges and that led to foul trouble. We just have to do better. We can't put ourselves in situations where we're having to foul. We got it going in the second half and played inside-out basketball and got the ball in the paint. We have to be able to do that from start to finish."
 
On his biggest takeaways from the game
"The effort and energy was there in the second half. It's amazing when you think about what could have happened if we started the game that way. Let's try and play 40 minutes like that and see what happens. We have to learn from this, practice tomorrow and get right back at it with another game Monday against Texas Southern."
 
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