BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — No. 5 seed Jackson State pulled an 83-65 victory over No. 4 seed Alabama State Thursday afternoon.
Jackson State (15-16, 10-8 SWAC) will advance to the Southwestern Athletic Conference quarterfinals round to play the winner of the Southern and Alcorn State game at 7:30 p.m tonight.
Trey Johnson, the SWAC’s second leading scorer, dropped 26 points on the Hornets and grabbed four steals in the BJCC arena. Shooting guards Dakari Wallace added 16 points and Charlie White scored 14 points for the Tigers.
“I thought our guys came out and really played hard to begin the game,” Jackson State coach Tevester Anderson said. “I thought our pressure defense was really outstanding at the first few minutes of the game, we wanted to put pressure on them.”
During SWAC conference play the Tigers split with the Hornets (12-18, 10-8). Last week at Alabama State, the Tigers lost 93-79 — Johnson led with 31 points. In January the Tigers won 77-64 at home.
Anderson said the win shocked him because his team captured such a large marginal victory over the Hornets, a hard feat because he said he knew they were a tough team.
”On Saturday they had a big win against us at their place, we realized that there are some things we could exploit on our defense that we didn’t do over there,” Anderson said. “Our pressure defense was good and we made some timely baskets.”
The Tigers forced 19 Hornet turnovers.
Jackson State led by as much as 24 points with 2:14 left to play, the score was 79-56.
In the first half, the score was tied three times. A jumper by Johnson put the Tigers up 6-8 and they took off from there. Adding fuel to fire, White came back down the court and hit a 3-pointer to add to a 10-4 run for an 18-10 lead with 12:40 left to play in the first half.
By halftime, Johnson, a junior guard scored 11 of his total 26 points and Jackson State led 39-27.
“I thought we came out a little flat,” Alabama State coach Lewis Jackson said. “We couldn’t get anything going early in the first half, we found ourselves down a few points and we couldn’t get any shots to fall around the basket.”
Herbert Warren came off the bench to add 14 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for the Hornets. Freshman guard Andrews Hayles got hit with a technical foul and ejected from the game with 16:42 in the second half for throwing an elbow.
