Jags fail to execute against Tulane

 
The Southern men’s basketball team couldn’t capitalize off the football team’s success at the Bayou Classic falling to Tulane 68-65 Saturday at Devlin Fieldhouse.
The game couldn’t have started out any worse for the Jaguars behind by 11 less than 4 minutes into the game.
“We kept fighting up hill to get a run together and our run actually came late but you know its hard to face a team of this magnitude on the road and get your self down,” head coach Roman Banks said.
The Jaguars first points came from Jaylan Mitchell who played a key role in keeping Southern (1-5) in the first half of the game scoring seven points along with three blocks and steals.
Derick Beltran on the other hand was cold from the three point line going 0-5 in the first half.
“We just got to execute. My performance wasn’t where it was supposed to be I don’t know why it was a couple of bad shots here and there,” Beltran said, “but our team is getting better.”
The Jaguars were fortunate enough to be down by only 13 points going into the half, despite Southern’s shooting percentage was below 30 percent, Tulane (4-2) wasn’t much better shooting only 33.3 percent.
In the second half, seniors Jameel Grace and Derick Beltran both got into scoring in double digits to bring the Jaguars within pulling the upset.
Beltran who struggled in the first half scored 12-points of his 14-points in the second half and Grace who was also non-existent in the first half scored 16 of his 18-points in the second half.
But on the other side, Tulane’s Josh Davis and Ricky Tarrant were hot scoring 11 points a piece.
Davis went 4-5 in the field and Tarrant went 3-5 behind the arch.
In the closing seconds of the game SU pulled within two when Grace hit a layup with 15 seconds remaining.
A free throw by Kendall Timmons pushed the Green Wave’s lead to 68-65 with 12 seconds left in the game.
Needing three points, Beltran took the last shot to tie and missed ending the game and sealing Tulane’s win.
Jameel Grace led the team with 18-points and freshman Malcolm Miller who averages 12 points a game came off the bench to score 16.
Southern ended a ten day road trip with Saturdays loss to Tulane and will look to try to get back to fixing the little things.
“We have to go to practice we been on the road so we’ll have to work on the little things. If we can work on the little things it can effect the outcome of the game it will help us some,” Banks said. “We are not off by much but we got to clean up a lot of little things and if we can do that I think we can compete down the line.”
The loss marks the Jaguars third in a row and of those three losses all were less than 10 points.
“Its just something we need to adjust to, these close games that we are losing hurts, because we work so hard,” Beltran said. “But these next couple of games these teams are going to feel us we are coming together every game and getting better and better.”