FRIDAY'S SCORES
Jacksonville State, Chicago State (Niceville, Fla.)
@Tennessee Tech 85, Robert Morris 72
JACKSONVILLE STATE 68, CHICAGO STATE 65
NICEVILLE, Fla. - Erik Durham and Jared Hamilton scored career highs and the Jacksonville State men's basketball team held off a late Chicago State charge for a 68-65 win to open the Emerald Coast Classic on Friday.
Durham poured in 23, thanks to a 6-for-9 effort from behind the arc, while Hamilton scored 17 to lift the Gamecocks (3-5) over the Panthers (3-3) and into Saturday's bracket championship game against Chattanooga at 1 p.m.
Hamilton led JSU with six boards, while Durham and sophomore Malcolm Drumwright each grabbed five rebounds. To go along with Durham and Hamilton's career highs in the points column, Drumwright added 14 while dishing six assists.
The Panthers got 24 points from Kieran Woods and 17 from Elliott Cole.
A back-and-forth game in the early minutes saw the Gamecocks pull away at the midway point of the half. They used a 10-0 run that stretched almost three minutes and gave them a 26-17 lead with 6:15 left in the half.
The Panthers pulled within five, but three-straight 3-pointers from the Gamecocks by Drumwright, Durham and DelFincko Bogan gave JSU its largest lead of the half at 39-27. The Panthers got a putback just before the horn to make it a 10-point game at the intermission.
CSU scored the first five points of the second half to cut the Gamecocks' lead to five at 39-34 and extended the run to 14-4 and pulled to within two at 43-41.
TENNESSEE TECH 85, ROBERT MORRIS 72
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. - A fast start and a solid second half, plus 20-point performances by Ryan Martin and Aleksa Jugovic allowed Tennessee Tech to overcome a feisty challenge by Robert Morris Friday night and claim an 85-72 victory in Eblen Center in an Air Force Classic contest.
Tech (3-2) remains unbeaten at home this season with its third straight victory, and posted its 11th consecutive non-conference home victory.
Martin produced his first career double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds, providing the points inside, while Jucovic added 20 points plus seven rebounds and six assists in giving the Golden Eagles plenty of punch from outside. All three of Jugovis’s numbers tied or set career-best marks, while Martin tied his career-high in points and set a new career-best on the glass.
The Golden Eagles provided loads of support, too. Torrance Rowe chipped in with 14 points, a career high six rebounds and eight assists; Hakeem Rogers scored 11 points; Anthony Morse had nine points, five rebounds and three blocks shots; Courtney Alexander finished with a career-high eight rebounds.
Robert Morris (0-6) was led by Rodney Pryor with 21 points, while Elijah Minnie added 18 points, six rebounds and three blocked shots. Billy Giles scored 16 along with six rebounds and three blocked shots.
Rowe dropped in a 3-pointer from 23 feet four minutes into the contest to cap an 11-0 run as the Golden Eagles opened the game on fire. That double-digit lead slowly disappeared, however, as Tech’s shooting cooled off and the Colonials heated up. A 3-pointer from Minnie completed the long, slow comeback for the Colonials and tied the game at 29-29 with 5:23 to go in the half.
They didn’t stop there, either. The Colonials went up 33-31 on a layup by Giles for their first lead of the night, then opened it to 38-31 on a 3-pointer by Minnie and a driving layup by Kavin Stewart, the second coming with 1:19 left in the half.
After hitting seven of their first 10 shots in the opening six minutes, the Golden Eagles lost the touch, hitting just 5-for-22 the rest of the way, heading to halftime with a 37.5 shooting mark. RMU, meanwhile, opened 3-for-11 and went 14-for-25 the rest of the half for a 47.5 shooting mark in the first half and led 41-35 at intermission.
A 3-pointer by Rowe and four free throws by Martin kept Tech close to open the second half, before Martin’s layup with 14:28 tied thing at 48-48. Just 13 seconds later, Rogers’ layup following a steal by Jugovic put Tech ahead with a lead they never relinquished.
Jugovic then scored 10 consecutive points over a four-minute span, fluffing Tech’s lead back to double-digits for the first time since early in the first half. Another Jugovic 3-pointer with 3:17 to play made it a 17-point Tech lead, the largest of the night.
In all, the sophomore from Serbia scored 17 of his 20 points in the second half.
The best Robert Morris could do after that was trim the deficit to nine points, 81-72 on a 3-pointer by Pryor with 1:29 remaining.