Game 3: Troy def. Alcorn St., 92-79
BATON ROUGE — Troy University used 12 first-half three-point field goals to build a 28-point halftime advantage and then held on for a 92-79 win over Alcorn State Friday afternoon on the second day of the LSU Invitational at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Troy finished the first weekend of the tournament, 1-1, and is now 1-3 for the season. The Trojans will play in the Invitational two more games Nov. 28 and 29. Alcorn falls to 0-2 for the first week and 0-4 for the season. The Braves will also play two more games at LSU on Nov. 28 and 29.
The Trojans, who lost to Centenary, 81-77, in Thursday’s opener, made 24-of-37 field goal attempts in the first half (64.9 percent) and 12-of-20 (60%) from the new 20-9 three-point arc in gaining a 67-39 halftime advantage.
But in the second half, Troy hit just 30 percent from the floor, including 2-of-16 from the arc as Alcorn managed to get as close as 12 late in the game. Alcorn State was helped by getting 23 points off Troy’s 17 turnovers, but Troy had 19 second chance points and the Troy bench outscored Alcorn, 42-17.
The Trojans out rebounded the Braves, 51-32.
Five Trojans were in double figures led by the 16 points of Regis Huddleston. Brandon Hazzard added 14, Richard Delk 12 and Tom Jervais and Mario Telfair 10 each. Alcorn was led for the second straight game by the play of Troy Jackson, who followed up his 16 points against LSU with 26 against Troy. Jarvis Williams and Brandon Rogers had 12 each and Anthony Ford 11.
Game 4: Northwestern St. def. Centenary, 69-66
BATON ROUGE — One of North Louisiana’s oldest rivalries moved to the Maravich Assembly Center for an afternoon Friday and the Demons of Northwestern State proved strongest down the stretch to take a 69-66 decision in the final game of the second day of the LSU Invitational.
Northwestern State, 2-1, playing its first game in the Invitational, takes on host LSU at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Centenary, 1-3 overall and 1-1 in the event, returns for games next Friday and Saturday.
The Demons had a comfortable 10-point, 36-26, advantage at the intermission, but Centenary slowly began to whittle away at the lead, including an 8-0 run that saw Northwestern’s 49-44 lead at the 12:03 mark vanish into a 52-49 Centenary lead at the 8:02 mark on a jumper by Chase Adams. The game was tied three more times after that, the last at 57-57 with 3:40 to play.
Northwestern took the lead back for good on a free throw by Michael McConathy at the 3:11 mark and eventually moved out to a 66-60 lead with 49 seconds to play. But the Gents made one last run, cutting the margin to 67-66 with four seconds left on a three-pointer by Adams.
Centenary called time out to set up its defense and with Centenary full-court trapping, Northwestern State elected to throw over the top finding Charles Clark on a length of the court pass for the winning margin with two seconds to play.
NSU Coach Mike McConathy won his 499th game as a head coach with the win and will go for No. 500 on Sunday against LSU. His son Michael was the game’s leading scorer off the bench with 17 points and four assists in 22 minutes, while Dominic Knight had 15 points. William Mosley had 10 rebounds and six blocks for the Demons.
Centenary got 20 from Adams, 17 from Gary Redus and a double double of 16 points and 12 boards from Nick Stallings.
Neither team shot particularly well in the physical game that saw 47 fouls and 56 free throws shot between the two teams.