Jaguars overwhelm ASU
Doggett, Beltran, Grace power SU
Luther Page and Anthony Price sat on the visitor’s bench at the F.G. Clark Activity Center, resting their elbows on the chairbacks behind them, looking thoroughly dejected as the final minute disappeared.
After years of defeating the Southern men’s basketball team on its home floor, perhaps the Alabama State players weren’t used to a sight like this. Maybe they didn’t expect to see what unfolded Monday night, when the Jaguars shot a sparkling 54 percent from the floor and dumped the Hornets in a 68-56 victory that was more lopsided than the final score showed.
But it happened.
On the other end of the floor, Quinton Doggett high-fived his teammates after the final horn. He had 17 points, eight rebounds and six blocks, energizing a team that pulled away from ASU early in the second half, leading by as many as 20 points.
Doggett earned his postgame meal. So did the rest of the team.
Before a crowd of 1,477 surprised-but-happy fans, the Jaguars hardly looked like a group of sore, worn-out bodies still recovering from an overtime win Saturday against Alabama A&M — a game in which four men logged 35 or more minutes.
Instead, Southern got solid inside play from Doggett and used a crisp, attacking transition game to take control early and carry the team the rest of the way.
“I thought if Doggett could be a little uptempo and aggressive, that he could jump over a lot of those guys and create his own shot, and going into the game, we wanted to throw the ball in there,” first-year coach Roman Banks said. “We feel like, if we throw it in to him (and) he gets some easy baskets, and that’ll open up some driving lanes for us.”
It did.
Shooting guard Derick Beltran had 17 points and six rebounds for the Jaguars, who led virtually the entire game — even though they were badly beaten in the rebounding category, 45-27.
Point guard Jameel Grace added 16 points, six rebounds and five assists in a team-high 36 minutes.
It was Southern’s first home victory over Alabama State since Jan. 23, 2006, when the Jaguars — then in their first year under coach Rob Spivery — topped the Hornets 72-68 in overtime.
With Monday’s victory, Southern also kept its third-place perch in the Southwestern Athletic Conference standings.
SU (10-11, 6-2) closes out the first half of conference play at home Saturday against Alcorn State.
Alabama State (7-12, 4-3) got 12 points and 11 rebounds from Ivory White, but as a team, the Hornets shot only 33 percent from the floor and 46 percent from the free-throw line.
In doing so, ASU dropped its second straight game. The Hornets also lost 61-60 at Alcorn on Saturday.
“We talk about doing things to win ballgames, but we did not do anything tonight,” ASU coach Lewis Jackson said. “They came out and took it to us and were able to get out on the break and score off some rebounds.”
As for the Jaguars, they might hit a wall between now and their next game.
They’ll worry about that later.
Banks had planned to take it easy on his team Sunday, realizing players had expended plenty of sweat and energy in the Alabama A&M game Saturday afternoon.
Instead, Banks ratcheted up Sunday’s practice a little, gambling that another round of work on the team’s transition game could pay dividends against Alabama State, a team that looks somewhat similar to Southern — relatively small in the post, and not blessed with a terribly deep roster.
“The style of ball that we play, the way we’re uptempo, and how we’re going to keep pressure on you defensively, you’ve got to be in pretty good shape,” Banks said. “And I think that our conditioning has paid off.”
So, too, did Banks’ gamble.