South Alabama Men Advances To Quarterfinals With Win Over Troy
After losing both meetings to the Trojans during the regular season, South Alabama finally found a way to win at the perfect time. With strong performances by key players, including a very visibly sick DeAndre Coleman, and Troy’s inability to hit clutch shots in the final minute of the game lead to the 78-75 victory.
The game started rough for the Jaguars with the Trojans hitting two 3-pointers and four missed shots by the Jags in the first 70 seconds of the game to jump out to an 8-0 lead. Coach Arrow quickly called a 30 second timeout to regroup his team.
At the 14:54 mark of the first half the Trojans again stretched their lead to eight points 16-8 but the Jaguars would start to come alive finally. The Jags would take the lead with a 10-1 run over 2:36. But the Jaguars could not go ahead by more than a single point, trading the lead several times in the first half. However, Troy would eventually regain a narrow lead and go into the locker room up by four, 41-37.
The second half would see more close play with the lead changing hands a couple times before USA was able to push out to a four point lead with 14:37 left in the second half. However that lead would be short lived and a few more lead changes would occurr before USA would take the lead for the final time of the game at the 11:31 mark.
USA would go out to their largest lead of the game at eight points with 3:57 remaining but they could not put Troy away for good. Ronald Douglas would get fouled and he would make both of his free throws at the 2:13 mark and DeAndre Coleman would be fouled and make both of his free throw attempts at the :34 second mark, but the Jaguar free throw shooting would be abysmal for the rest of the game.
After Coleman’s free throws the Jaguars were up 77-73 and a potentially costly fouled by Bryan Sherrer allowed Troy to pull back within two points with the clock stopped. The inbounds play saw DeAndre Coleman get fouled by Kenny Ware of Troy but Coleman missed his first attempt but sunk his second to give the Jaguars a three point lead with 28 seconds to go at 78-75.
In the final 28 seconds there were three missed shots by Troy and four missed free throws by the Jaguars. However its still a win for the Jaguars.
Troy’s Brandon Hazzard had a game high of 22 points going 8-20 from the floor, 4-12 from 3-point range and 2-4 from the free-throw line. Michael Vogler and Richard Delk both added 12 for the Trojans.
Domonic Tilford scored 20 points to lead the Jaguars going 7-20 from the floor, 2-8 from 3-point range and 4-4 from the free throw line. LaShun Watson added a career high 18 points. A sick DeAndre Coleman scored 17 points. Finally Brandon Davis scored 11 points and 12 rebounds for a double-double.
The Quarterfinal games for the Men’s Bracket will have #1 Western Kentucky squaring off against #4 North Texas at 6:30pm then the #6 Jaguars will take on #2 UALR at 9:00. With two more victories the Jaguars will automatically receive a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
GO JAGS!!!!