Career-Night from Stampley Not Enough, as Troy Splits Weekend Series at App State

Saturday, January 2

Boone, N.C.

3 p.m.

Troy University

6-5,1-1Sun Belt

Appalachian State

7-4,1-1Sun Belt

Troy

Appalachian St.

Photo by: Jay Crain

Career-Night from Stampley Not Enough, as Troy Splits Weekend Series at App State

1/2/2021 6:45:00 PM | Basketball (M)

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

By: Troy Athletics Communications

BOONE, N.C. -- Despite a career-best 19 points from Nick Stampley, and a season-best eight 3-pointers, the Troy men's basketball team fell 90-59 Saturday afternoon at the Holmes Convocation Center.

The Trojans (6-5, 1-1 Sun Belt Conference), who defeated Appalachian State (7-4, 1-1 Sun Belt) 69-56 Friday night were denied the programs first 2-0 start in Sun Belt play in school history.

In defeat, the Trojans were led by Stampley and freshman Kam Woods who scored 14 points for his sixth game with at least 10 points this season.

The Trojans got off to a slow start Saturday, as Appalachian State hit six of their first seven (two 3-pointers and two and-ones) to open up an early 17-4 lead just 3:53 into the game.

An and-one, a dunk from freshman Miles Mendes and one more Stampley bucket propelled the Trojans to nine of the next 11, cutting the Mountaineer lead to 19-13 with 12:09 to play in the opening period.

After an App State bucket, a Christian Turner triple cut the Troy deficit to just 21-16 with 10:54 to play in the period, but Justin Forrest and the Appalachian State offense got hot using a 16-2 outburst to take a 37-18 lead with 3:22 to play in the period.

Kieffer Punter's 3-pointer with exactly three mins to play in the half and layup from Woods cut the Appalachian State lead to just 39-23, but one last 11-3 outburst from Forrest and App State gave the home side a 50-26 lead at the break. Of the 11 points, nine came from Forrest who hit two triples and was fouled on a 3-point attempt with 1.7 seconds to play.

Coming out of the break, Stampley and the Trojans scored 12 of the 16 points over the first 4:49 of the final period to cut the Mountaineer lead to just 16, but App State used one last 15-4 run to put the game away for good.

Down the stretch, Troy cut the App State lead to 73-51 with 7:55 to play, but the Mountaineers scored 17 of the final 26 to roll to a 90-59 victory.

The 90 points allowed are the most Troy has allowed since Coastal Carolina scored 90 last Feb. 20.

Forrest led all scorers with 21 points on 6-of-7 shooting from behind the arc. In total five different Mountaineers reached double-figures, as App State hit 15 shots from distance, the most a team has connected on in the Scott Cross Era.

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE:
• Troy concludes the opening weekend of Sun Belt play at 1-1 overall. All six Sun Belt East teams split their series this weekend (South Alabama/Georgia Southern, Georgia State/Coastal Carolina and Troy/Appalachian State).
• In the SBC West, only Little Rock was able to convert the two-game sweep (vs. UTA).
• Stampley has now scored in double figures in five straight games (Dec. 16-Present). The senior scored 36 total points in the two games this weekend, and 53 points for the weekend.
• Troy allowed 15 triples in a game for the first time since the 2018-19 season (Coastal Carolina, Jan. 3)
• Zay Williams had another quiet game for the Trojans. He scored just four points for the second time in four games. Williams was held to just five points at Auburn (Dec. 19), before bouncing back with 15 Monday night against Carver.
• Troy falls to 1-4 when the Birmingham native doesn't reach at least 10 points.

HEAD COACH SCOTT CROSS:
"I thought we prepared the same way today that we did for yesterday's win. I thought we made some good adjustments, but the story right from the tip was us looking like we weren't mentally ready to play. If you look at the numbers we shot the ball as well as we have pretty much any game this season except last night. Our offense wasn't the problem today. Defensively they were able to drive us all night long and they got hot. We knew that Justin Forrest was capable of having that kind of night because he did it against us in both games last year. He broke out of his slump tonight. He caught fire tonight and was hitting shots right in our face. He's a guy you cannot let get going because when he has his confidence he can really hurt you. His momentum carried over to the other guys. This was disappointing on our end because I wanted to see more fight from our guys. Every game that we've lost this year has been a blowout. You'd like to see guys find a way to scratch and claw black to make it a game. We haven't been able to do it. That's probably our next step in our maturation. We need to find a way to fight back when we get down and win one of these games."