TUESDAY'S SCORES
Southeast Missouri 74, Cal State Northridge 59 (Cancun, Mexico)
@IUPUI 67,
Morehead State 61
@Tennessee State 60, Canisius 52
Tennessee Tech 104, @New Mexico 96
Jacksonville State 77, @Chattanooga 75 (OT)
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 74, CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE 59
CANCUN, Mexico - Freshman Ledarrius Brewer scored a game-high 20 points in his first career start to lead Southeast Missouri (2-2) to a 74-59 victory over Cal State Northridge (1-3) Tuesday at the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya.
Brewer, one of three Redhawks in double figures, shot 6-of-15 from the field and made four of his field goals from 3-point range. He also made 4-of-5 free throws in 32 minutes and dropped in 15 of his points in the first half.
SEMO buried a season-high 10 three-pointers and led for 27:39 of the contest in its first-ever meeting with Big West Conference member CSUN.
Denzel Mahoney joined Brewer with double-digits in the scoring column in the first half leading SEMO to a 39-28 lead at the intermission.
Brewer paved the way with 15 points in his first 17 minutes, knocking down three 3-pointers along the way. Mahoney added four field goals, including two from downtown.
SEMO trailed, 22-19, before going on a 9-0 run. Mark Laros' layup off a steal by Mahoney gave the Redhawks their first lead at 24-22 with 7:48 remaining. Mahoney added two free throws and later capped the surge with a layup to stretch SEMO's lead to 28-22.
Mahoney's 3-pointer put the Redhawks ahead by double figures (37-26) with under a minute left before they headed into the locker room with their biggest halftime lead of the season.
The Matadors did not make a field goal for the final 5:10 of the first half.
SEMO took its largest lead by 22 points twice in the second half when Brewer's layup gave the Redhawks a 72-50 advantage and Justin Carpenter's jumper made it 74-52 within the final five minutes.
The Redhawks went 10-of-24 from beyond the 3-point arc for 41.7 percent and held CSUN to 33.9 percent (21-of-62) from the field. SEMO also had 17 assists on 28 made field goals.
Mahoney shot 7-of-9 from the field and finished with 18 points and six rebounds. Ray Kowalski followed with 10 points, while Carpenter added nine points and five boards off the bench. All of Carpenter's points were in the second half. Laros contributed eight points and nine rebounds, as well.
Michael Warren and Lyrik Shreiner each scored 14 points to lead the Matadors.
IUPUI 67, MOREHEAD STATE 61
INDIANAPOLIS - Morehead State Men's Basketball fell behind 13-2 early on at IUPUI Tuesday night before rallying to make it a close contest. The Eagles, however, ultimately dropped a 67-61 decision at the Indiana Farmers Coliseum.
MSU fell to 1-3, while the Jaguars improved to 2-2.
The Eagles shot 57 percent (13-of-23) in the second half after going to the locker room behind 32-25. MSU outpaced the host squad 36-35 in the second 20 minutes.
Junior forward Lamontray Harris paced the visitors with 15 points and five rebounds, while junior guard A.J. Hick netted 14. Sophomore guard Djimon Henson, playing in his hometown, registered 12 – with 10 in the first half.
IUPUI was paced by forward Aaron Brennan with 15 markers.
The Eagles finished at 43 percent (22-of-51) for the night, while both teams secured 31 rebounds.
Morehead State trimmed the Jaguar lead to 49-47 with 7:31 left and had it at 54-51 with 3:51 remaining, but IUPUI scored the next five to put it ultimately out of reach.
TENNESSEE STATE 60, CANISIUS 52
NASHVILLE - Trailing by as many as 11 points in the second half, the Tennessee State men’s basketball stormed all the way back for a 60-52 come-from-behind victory over visiting Canisius at the Gentry Center on Tuesday night in non-conference action.
TSU (2-2) used smothering defense in the second half, holding the Golden Griffins (1-3) to just 17 points on 7-for-22 (31.8 percent) shooting in the final 20 minutes. On the night, the Tigers forced 21 turnovers.
On the offensive end, junior point guard Armani Chaney facilitated the offense all night with a career-high eight assists, while Ken’Darrius Hamilton posted team highs for points (19) and rebounds (8).
Delano Spencer added 16 points while Christian Mekowulu went for 14 in a winning cause.
The Tigers trailed Canisius by a 35-26 margin at the half but outscored the Golden Griffins by a 34-17 score the rest of the way for the second win of the young season.
TENNESSEE TECH 104, NEW MEXICO 96
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A double-digit comeback. A mind-blowing shooting performance. Nearly 10,000 fans, a historic venue and an up-and-down, back-and-forth marathon.
This all reigned true for the Tennessee Tech men's basketball team Tuesday evening, as the Golden Eagles (4-1) outgunned the Lobos of New Mexico (2-2) in The Pit, 104-96, before a deafening crowd of 9,700.
Not many people watching the first five minutes of the contest would have predicted the outcome, as Tech missed its first 10 attempts from the field, trailing 10-1 with 14:39 on the clock before senior Aleksa Jugovic ended the drought with a triple.
Not thinking much of it at the time, the shot would foreshadow one of the greatest shooting performances in program history. Trailing by as many as 14 in the first half, Jugovic put the Golden Eagles on his back in the first half, draining all eight of his attempts from the field, including a perfect 6-for-6 showing from downtown and 2-for-2 effort at the charity stripe.
The guard finished with 24 first-half points and had Tech shooting 50 percent from the field despite the woeful start to the contest. New Mexico held a 55-51 advantage at the break, but the veteran Golden Eagle squad never wavered, despite being pressured by a full-court, trapping press by the Lobos the entire contest.
Jugovic passed the scoring touch and torch over to fellow senior Curtis Phillips Jr. in the second half, as the forward dropped 16 of his Tech career-high 23 points on 4-for-6 shooting and a 6-for-7 at the free throw line. Phillips Jr. also made six steals (and a career-high eight in the contest) over the final 20 minutes helping keep the Golden Eagles close throughout the remainder of the game.
While the contest featured a whopping 15 lead changes, 11 of them occurred in the second half; none bigger than the final one with 2:26 to play. Trailing by one point after the final media timeout and a pair of UNM free throws, graduate guard Kajon Mack took to the rack and drew a foul of his own.
Mack calmly drained both attempts at the charity stripe, providing Tech the lead for good. Both teams traded buckets and the Lobos called a timeout with 1:06 to play, fortunately allowing Tech to draw up a play that all-but iced the game away for good.
Ten seconds later, Mack found the sweet-shooting "Serbian Sugar" (Jugovic) in the right corner, who promptly splashed his seventh 3-pointer of the night for a four-point Tech lead a bit of team history as well. The triple tied his own school record for consecutive 3-pointers in a single game as well as making him the first player to finish a contest 7-for-7 or better from downtown.
Phillips Jr. put a ribbon on it on the next play as junior forward Courtney Alexander II secured his 10th rebound of the contest and flung the ball across the court to the wide open Golden Eagle. Phillips Jr. drew contact, finished the layup and sunk the following free throw for a three-point play and seven-point Tech lead.
The Golden Eagles knocked down their final four free throw attempts from that point to secure the eight-point win. The 104 points marked the most by a Tech team against a Division I opponent in regulation since defeating Southeast Missouri 103-76 back in January of 2009.
In the game, Tech outscored the Logos 42-20 in the paint and put up a mind-blowing 49 fast break points, the most by a Golden Eagle team in over 15 years. Despite the 0-for-10 start to the game, Tech shot 55.7 percent from the field, 54.5 percent from 3-point range and 75.0 percent from the line. The Golden Eagles went nuts in the second half, firing at 63.0 percent from the floor and 55.6 percent from deep.
Jugovic tallied a career-high 31 points on the night, finishing an astonishing 11-for-12 from the field with six assists and three boards. Phillips Jr. posted 23 points while hitting eight of his nine free throw attempts. His eight steals tied for the single-game program record and were the most since Van Usher during the 1990-91 season.
Mack posted 14 points on the night, including a 6-for-6 mark at the line, while adding four assists. Graduate transfer Shaq Calhoun also notched 14 points, while playing big minutes down the stretch and coming up with two clutch steals.
Alexander narrowly missed out on his third straight double-double, settling for nine points and a game-high 10 rebounds. Held to just two points, senior forward Mason Ramsey made a massive impact on the glass and distributing the ball, hauling in eight rebounds and dishing out six assists.
Chris McNeal led the Lobo scoring effort with 29 points on a 7-for-11 showing from beyond the arc. Sam Logwood added 21 points for New Mexico.
JACKSONVILLE STATE 77, CHATTANOOGA 75 (OT)
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - A 27-point performance from senior Malcolm Drumwright lifted the Jacksonville State men's basketball team to a 77-75 overtime win over Chattanooga Tuesday night at McKenzie Arena.
The OT victory was the Gamecocks' first since downing Georgia State 80-74 in two overtimes on Nov. 22, 2008 (a span of 272 games), and was the first win over UTC since Feb. 22, 1975. Among the historical milestones achieved, Jacksonville State claimed the Cayman Islands Classic - Chattanooga Bracket championship with the win.
JSU and UTC went to overtime tied 70-70 following a three-pointer hit by Chattanooga's Rodney Chatman with eight seconds to go in regulation. With 1:42 left on the clock in the five-minute overtime period, Makinde London hit a free throw to put the Mocs up by an OT-best three points, but the 6-foot-10 junior missed the second free throw and Jason Burnell made Chattanooga pay. Sixteen seconds later, the JSU junior hit a big three-pointer to tie the game at 75 with 1:26 to go.
Junior Marlon Hunter delivered the final blow on a layup with 32 seconds to go. The Gamecocks' defense then stole the ball away and forced an errant three-pointer as time expired.
Drumwright scored 25 of his 27 points following the conclusion of the first half. The senior played a whopping 44 minutes, was 11-for-22 from the floor and hit four of seven three-pointers taken.
Jacksonville State and Chattanooga looked very similar in the first half. Both teams shot 50% from the floor and were 75% from the free-throw line, leading to a narrow 33-31 Gamecock advantage at the half.
Jamall Gregory led JSU scorers with 10 points in the first period, scoring five within the first two minutes of play. The junior then hit three consecutive foul shots to help the Gamecocks to a half-best five-point lead.
Chattanooga battled back from the five-point deficit and took a brief lead, but a nine-point run, fueled by a Burnell jumper and three-pointer, erased the Mocs' advantage and put the Gamecocks back up by five, 24-19, with less than seven minutes to go in the period.
JSU held onto the lead until the 16:21 mark of the second half when a London trey put UTC ahead 42-41 - the Mocs' first lead since 9:40 in the first. The lead changed hands seven more times before the end of regulation.
Gregory and Burnell each ended the night with 10 points, while senior Norbertas Giga followed tallied 11 points and a team-high 13 rebounds.