No Dance: Jaguars fall short to Grambling State in SWAC Quarterfinals

Southern University Men’s Basketball went into the weekend’s SWAC Tournament looking for a win in their first glimpse of action at this year’s SWAC tournament. During last week’s loss at Texas Southern, the energy simply wasn’t there as the Jags dropped their last game leading up to the tournament.
Despite the days off afforded to the Jags however, many of the same mistakes were featured prominently in the squad’s loss to the Grambling State Tigers over the weekend by a score of 72-67. The team was just two points shy of repeating the score from the initial game versus the Tigers on February 6, 2021, where the score was 72-69. However this game had a little more animosity being that this game was a rivalry matchup in the SWAC Tournament.
The Jags leading scorer, Harrison Henderson, led the team with twenty points and seven rebounds in a total of twenty-eight minutes played. Following closely behind was Terrell Williams Jr., a 6’5 freshman forward. Williams had a total of 14 points, 11 rebounds, and two assists in the span of forty-four minutes played. With the hard work of these two players and the solid contribution of other teammates, the team was able to maintain levelness with the Tigers until overtime.
The game remained close throughout the entirety of the game with both teams competing at a high level throughout the contest on defense especially. The teams seemed to be going toe to toe in scoring during the first half as well behind Henderson’s scoring. Southern scored most of their points in the first half off free throws alone, while Grambling scored most of their points from jump shots and layups. With just seconds left in the first half, Southern’s Delor Johnson, a 6’3 Sophomore Guard tied the game up with a free throw, bringing the half time score to 28-28 all.
Beginning the second half, Southern took a one-point lead from a Kirk Parker freethrow. From the moment that the clock began in the second half, Southern seemed to be using the same offensive tactics of getting to the freethrow that was used throughout the first half. Again, both teams were going head to head in points throughout the second half. With about 8 minutes left in the second half, Southern fell behind by five points, which was the biggest gap of the game, though they were able to quickly recover. The second half ended with a score of 59-59 prompting the game to go into overtime.
Going into overtime, Grambling was the first team to score. For a short while, the Tigers were in the lead. The Jags got it together, but Grambling was not ready to step down just yet. Both teams went tick for tack until Southern seemed to be gaining some sort of control over the game. However, the Tigers seemed to shrug it off. With just three seconds left in the game, Grambling leading with a score of 70-67. Tra’Michael Moton, a 6’1 Sophomore Guard made free-throws for Grambling.
The final score of the game turned out to be 72-67. The Jags will finish their season with a 8-11 record while being ranked #5 in the SWAC. Both teams played hard all the way up until the final seconds of the game. Though the season may not have ended as the team expected, the Jags had an overall great season and will come back stronger next season.