Jags look to snap 3-game losing skid

The Southern University men’s basketball team will look for a little home cooking this weekend after suffering back-to-back road losses last weekend in Southwestern Athletic Conference play.
The Jaguars (1-15, 1-3 SWAC) are mired in a three-game losing streak and are tied with Alabama A&M (3-9, 1-3) near the bottom of the conference standings. Southern fell 83-74 last Monday at Jackson State while suffering a heartbreaking 55-53 loss at Grambling State last Saturday.
SU looks to snap the slide Saturday afternoon against an Arkansas-Pine Bluff team (4-12, 2-1 SWAC) that is one game off the pace of co-leaders Alabama State (7-7, 4-0 SWAC) and Prairie View A&M (6-9, 3-0 SWAC).
The SU-UAPB tilt is scheduled to tip off at 4 p.m. at the F.G. Clark Activity Center. The homestand continues Monday night with a nationally televised game against Mississippi Valley (1-15, 1-2 SWAC). The MLK Day game will begin at 7:30 p.m. with ESPNU broadcasting the game.
In Jackson, Miss., Grant Maxey scored 20 points as the Tigers erased an 11-point Southern lead in the second half. The Jags led 64-53 with 11:04 to play on a 3-pointer by Barry Honore’ before J-State took over the rest of the way.
Down 69-60 with 9:08 to play, the Tigers went on a 12-2 run to lead 72-71 on a Darrion Griffin layup with 4:13 remaining. From that point, Jackson State closed the game on an 11-3 run, capped by six free throws from Rod Melvin.
Griffin and Garrison Johnson scored 18 each for the Tigers and Jeremy Caldwelll added 16 points.
Four players scored in double figures for the Jaguars with Honore’ tallying 16, Douglas Scott adding 15, Steffon Wiley notching 14 and Chris Davis scoring 13.
Southern scored the first seven points of the game and led 12-6 before a Jackson State comeback. The Tigers went on a 14-0 run to take a 20-12 lead with 13:10 left in the first half.
The Jaguars led 42-38 at the halftime, but committed 13 second-half turnovers on the way to their third straight loss.
At Grambling, Ariece Perkins hit a 3-pointer with 1 second left to give Grambling State the dupe over SU.
A Davis jump shot with 12 seconds left gave Southern a 53-52 lead.
GSU, which snapped a seven-game losing streak, had a 26-21 lead at halftime after Southern shot 23.8 percent form the field (5 of 21) in the opening period.
After the Tigers jumped out to their biggest lead of the game with 15:41 reamining, 34-27, Southern scored eight unanswered points to pull ahead 35-34 on a Davis’ 3-pointer with 14:53 left.