Jaguars visit Jackson State with pressure mounting

The panic button shouldn’t be anywhere in sight, Sandy Pugh said.

A sense of urgency, on the other hand, is a must.

Soon after the Southern women’s basketball team suffered another disappointing loss at Grambling on Saturday afternoon, Pugh said it’s too early to worry about the Jaguars’ championship hopes.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Way too early.”

They’re still second in the Southwestern Athletic Conference standings, and a third straight regular-season title is very much within reach.

But at 5:30 p.m. Monday in Jackson, Miss., Southern (8-9, 7-3) completes the second leg of a two-game road swing with a game against Jackson State (9-10, 6-4) — and while this game isn’t necessarily a must, it’s close.

“I mean, in this league, you just have to get a split (on the road),” Pugh said. “I think Monday’s game puts more pressure on us. You’ve just got to get your split.”

Pugh, in her 12th season at Southern, said Sunday she suspects that this year’s SWAC champion will have “at least four losses.”

If she’s right, her Jaguars can afford one more slip-up over the next eight games. Maybe two.

That, in part, was why Pugh was so clearly disappointed by the one-point loss at Grambling.

“I thought we played in spurts. But we’re still not dominating our opponent to the level we need to be dominating,” Pugh said. “We’re too talented a team not to dominate, especially inside. And that’s very frustrating to me.”

Yes, SU had a chance to win a road game in the final minute, and that’s always good. But the Jaguars committed 21 turnovers and shot only 31 percent from the floor after halftime.

Sloppy defense allowed Grambling to make 50 percent of its shots in the second half, including several easy run-out baskets.

And in Pugh’s words, their post play was “horrible.”

Junior center Laneisha Stephens played what may have been her best game of the season, with 17 points and 11 rebounds.

But she missed two shots in the last minute, and her second attempt was a rushed second-chance jumper with plenty of time remaining and the score still tied.

Grambling got the loose-ball rebound and called timeout with 9.9 seconds left. Eventually, Jasher Blocker sank the game-winning free throw, giving the Lady Tigers a 60-59 upset win.

Southern’s other top two post players, senior Jamie Floyd and junior Lechell Rush, combined for 11 points in 44 minutes.

It also didn’t help that star freshman Kendra Coleman had an off night, going 3-for-14 from the floor.

“You get the guards going and the post players drop,” Pugh said, grinning as she shook her head. “You get the post players going and the guards can’t get them the ball. We’ve got to figure out how to get both of them together.”

That was something the Jaguars didn’t do especially well in their first game against JSU on Jan. 9, when SU shot 26 percent from the field and managed only 16 first-half points. The Jaguars lost, 49-42.

Then there was Saturday’s game.

“At some point, we’ve got to figure out how to close games,” she said. “I mean, we put ourselves in a position to close. Now we just have to stick a fork in it.”

For now, however, it’s too early to stick a fork in them.