Southern University Men’sBasketball head coach Michael Grant took the program where it hadn’t been infive years: the Jaguars reached a 5-1 Southwestern Athletic Conference recordMonday night, a feat not accomplished since January 2000.
Grant, in his second yearcoaching, led the Jaguars to a 69-65 victory over Mississippi Valley State inthe F.G. Clark Activity Center. Southern (8-7, 5-1) is currently on a three-game home-win streak and isin first place in SWAC standings.
“The guys kept fighting,” Grantsaid about the team coming from behind as much as 11 points to get the victory. “The guys really came out; they gave usa solid effort tonight, they played together as a team, they hung inthere. Valley took a nice ‘lillead on us, I refused to call a time-out and I just wanted these guys to keepbattling and that’s what they did — they found a way to win the ballgame.”
The key to Grant’s coaching hasbeen defense. Mississippi Valley(5-9, 3-2) had 20 turnovers. Within 11 minutes to play, and the score 37-43, the Jaguars went into afull court press and in that forced as much as three consecutive turnovers allaround their baseline.
Approximately 1163 fans loudlycheering and adding momentum to the game didn’t hurt the atmosphere either.
Southern went on a six-point runbefore the Devils’ Jesse Taylor made a lay-up.
Jags’ senior forward JerimieCollier established even more drive to the team by nailing an open three-pointshot with 11:06 to play cutting the lead to 40-45.
From there both teams went pointfor point.
“We just want to keep up thewinning effort,” Collier said. ”Coach has been preaching a lot about defense — and defense won thisgame. We kept trading baskets withthem back and forth and we stepped up finally where we got some baskets and we’d’ed’ up and that caused us to win the ball game.”
Mississippi Valley then led thegame 60-52, with 6:21 on the clock but couldn’t keep it as the press took atoll on them.
Collier, tied with MVSU’s JesseTaylor was the game’s second leading scorer, netted 15 points in 22 minutes;senior forward Peter Cipriano added 12, and 10 rebounds; and junior shootingguard Alvin Mott scored 11 points. The Devils’ senior guard Hosea Butler had the game high with 18.
It was Mott’s jumper that tiedthe game 65-65 with three minutes to play. In an attempt to take back the lead Butler put up a shot andmissed but for another chance forward Jeffery Price captured the offensiverebound. Only to call aMississippi Valley timeout, the teams last, on an inbounds pass back to Butlerhe fell out of bounds. To add todrama both teams were in a double bonus.
The Jaguars and the Devils eachhad one more possession to take the lead. But, mid-court with 1:38 in regulation Collier stole the ball fromsenior forward Tim Latiker to put up a lay up for the 67-65 lead. With 21seconds left Jag’s senior forward Jarvis Vaughn made one of two free throws togive Southern a small cushion, but it was on Cipriano’s defensive rebound whileholding the ball to let the clock run out he was fouled. At the line with 3 seconds leftCipriano made his last of two free throws to seal Southern’s victory.
The next three games for theJaguars consist of road games. Thefirst one is set for 3 p.m. Saturday at Alabama State in Montgomery, Ala.Following games will be held at Alabama A&M and at Alcorn StateUniversity.
“We got three in a row, we gotto try to get these three, then Grambling,” Cipriano said.
The next home game is Saturday,Feb. 5, against the GSU Tigers at 7:30 p.m.
