Second Half Surge Comes Up Short at Georgia Southern

Saturday, January 16

Statesboro, Ga.

2 p.m.

Troy University

6-7,1-3Sun Belt

Georgia Southern

9-6,3-3Sun Belt

Troy

Ga. Southern

Second Half Surge Comes Up Short at Georgia Southern

1/16/2021 6:01:00 PM | Basketball (M)

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

By: Troy Athletics Communications

STATESBORO, Ga. -- Down six scholarship players including senior captain Nick Stampley, and playing their second game in less than 24 hours, the Troy Trojans basketball program fell 63-56 to the Georgia Southern Eagles Saturday afternoon at Hanner Fieldhouse.

In the loss, junior Zay Williams scored a season-best 24 points for the Trojans (6-7 overall, 1-3 Sun Belt Conference), shooting an efficient 10-for-14 from the field. Williams added eight rebounds and three blocks.

Freshman Kam Woods added another 12 points Saturday, backing up his 23-point performance from Friday with his seventh game with at least 10 points.

The Trojans started slowly Saturday afternoon falling behind 10-2 just three minutes and 33 seconds into the contest.

After back-to-back baskets from Kieffer Punter and Williams brought the Trojans to within 12-6, Georgia Southern (9-6, 3-3 Sun Belt) used an 8-0 spurt to take a game-high 14-point lead with 10:32 left in the period.

Needing a run the Trojans behind a pair of triples from Zay and Desmond Williams used to a 10-0 run over the next 3:22 to claw to within four (23-19) at the under-eight media timeout.

Neither team would score over the next 90 seconds of play until Andrei Savrasov nailed a triple with six minutes to play in the period that gave GS a 26-19 lead.

Down the stretch of the first half the Trojans weren't able to really get any closer, as the Eagles took a 29-23 advantage into the locker room at halftime.

In the first half, Zay scored 13 of his 24 points while Dez Williams added a pair of triples for six of his eight points.

After halftime, the Trojans used a 10-2 run over the first 4:19 of the period to take a brief 33-31 lead with 15:54 to play.

As they did the entire weekend, Georgia Southern would find an answer using two 3-pointers and a pair of layups from transfer Zack Bryant to go on a 12-4 run to take a 43-37 lead with 11:36 to play.

With the Eagles up 47-39 with 9:07 to play, Woods and the Trojans used an 9-3 run to cut the deficit to just two points (50-48) with exactly five minutes to play, but Georgia Southern scored nine of the next 11 to take a commanding 59-50 lead with 43 seconds to play.

Bryant led the Eagles scoring 17 points (7-12 FG, 3-6 3-point) while Kamri Brown added 12, as the Eagles hit 10 3-pointers for the second consecutive night and extended their winning streak over the Trojans to eight straight.

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE:
• Woods scored 35 points this weekend.
• After grabbing 19 offensive rebounds last night, Troy was limited to just five this afternoon,
• Stampley missed his first career game as a Trojan Saturday due to the injury that forced him out of last night's contest after just five minutes of action.
• Junior Kieffer Punter failed to make a 3-pointer Saturday for first time in Sun Belt play.
• Williams' 24 points are the second most he's scored in his career. His career high is 28 set at Indiana a season ago.
• Junior Rory Pantophlet played a career-high 26 minutes in today's contest.
• Freshman Christian Turner earned his first career start.

HEAD COACH SCOTT CROSS:
"We weren't tough enough today. We also talk about how the toughest team always wins, and Georgia Southern was clearly the tougher team today. They deserved to win today. We gave up 12 offensive rebounds and grabbed only five after we had 19 last night. You won't win many basketball games when the rebounding margin is that different. They got another 12 possessions from those rebounds and they forced 12 steals which turned into a lot of 2-on-1 and 3-on-2 fast break opportunities. We just weren't good enough today and we need to find a way to get better. We shot 48 percent from the field today which usually would be good enough for us to win the game but we weren't tough and didn't win enough of the 50-50 balls. All of the little things we have to do we didn't do. The only way for us to be successful is for us to out tough the other teams in the league."