Troy Out-guns Valpo

Saturday, November 28

Statesboro, Ga. (Hosted by Georgia Southern)

2:00 PM

Troy University

Valparaiso

11/28/2009 8:00:00 PM | Basketball (M)

STATESBORO, Ga. ? For the second straight game, the shots were falling for Troy and they used that to cruise to another big win 80-64 over Valparaiso on Saturday.

The win moved Troy to 2-0 in the Legends Classic sub-regional round.

Troy (4-2) opened the game with a 9-0 start that turned into a 12-2 run forcing a Valparaiso timeout at the 15:39 mark. The Trojans parlayed that fast start into a 39-28 lead at the break.

Hot shooting keyed the early offense for the Trojans. The team hit 14-of-26 field goal attempts in the opening half, including 5-for-11 from deep. Both Brandon Hazzard and Richard Delk chipped in 12 points before the half.

“A couple of things happened tonight,” Troy head coach Don Maestri said. “First, we started off scoring really well. We hit several shots early and that got us going. Plus, [Valparaiso] was not really shooting well, which gave us a chance to get a big lead.

“We really performed well in all phases of the game. We played good defense, we rebounded and we shot well. I thought Vogler really did a good job of setting the tempo with some outstanding passes.”

The strong play continued in the second half with the Trojans opening up with an 8-2 run fueled by six points from Yamene Coleman. Coleman finished with 12 points and eight rebounds.

Vernon Taylor's lay up with 13:44 to go pushed Troy's lead out to 18 points and the Trojans' lead would get as large as 25 points at 67-42 behind another two by Taylor with 9:39 remaining.

Taylor scored eight points off the bench in 20 minutes of play. He was one of six Trojans with at least eight points.

Antywan Jones and Delk both scored 14 points to lead the Trojans. Jones, for the second consecutive game, sank a pair of 3-pointers. He also grabbed seven rebounds.

Michael Vogler scored eight points and finished with eight assists and three steals.

The Trojans also played stifling defense all night holding Valpo's dangerous shooters to just 33 percent shooting from outside.

Brandon Wood, who was averaging upwards of 26 points per game, scored just 19 points. He led a trio of Crusaders (2-4) in double-figures. Matt Kenney and Cory Johnson both added 11 points, respectively.

Troy out-rebounded Valpo 36-31, while also forcing the Crusaders into 14 turnovers. For the game the Trojans hit 50.9 percent (28-of-55) from the floor and hit 7-of-16 shots (43.8 percent) from behind the arc.

“This was an important win for us,” Maestri said. “Valpo is very similar to a lot of the teams we will play in our league. This game was something we needed, but we have to be ready for a totally different game tomorrow.”

With a 2-0 record in the sub-regional round, Troy has a chance for a clean sweep when they face the home team Georgia Southern Eagles at 2:30 pm CST on Sunday afternoon. Jim Tocco will bring you all the action from Hanner Fieldhouse beginning at 2 pm on the Troy ISP Network.