ITTA BENA, Miss. – Riding its hot hand from the three-point stripe, Mississippi Valley State jumped out to a 15-point halftime lead and never looked back from that point as they handed Prairie View A&M a 96-63 conference loss on Saturday evening in the Harrison HPER Complex.

Mississippi Valley stormed out to a 10-2 lead three minutes in before Prairie View's Trant Simpson and Michael Griffin nailed consecutive baskets to draw within 12-7 nearly a minute later. MVSU upped its advantage to 20-10 at the 14:17 mark but the Panthers fought back and trimmed their deficit to five at 22-17 with 11:48 left after a 7-2 run that was fueled by senior Duwan Kornegay. However, PV failed to capitalize on its brief run as MVSU answered by nailing three treys which sparked a 16-3 surge and a 38-20 Delta Devil margin at the 8:46 mark. Prairie View never recovered from that point as they would draw no closer than 14 points the remainder of the half as MVSU claimed a 50-35 halftime advantage.

The Panthers struggled to begin the second half as they went scoreless for nearly five minutes while MVSU remained hot from the arc with three more treys to claim a 60-35 margin. From that point, the wall became too high to climb for the Panthers as MVSU remained ahead by a 20-point margin for the remainder of the contest.

Simpson and Kornegay led Prairie View A&M with 14 and 12 points, respectively. Brandon Webb was the team's top rebounder with six while Kornegay followed with five.

The Panthers return to action on Monday night as they close out their two-game road trip with a matchup at Arkansas-Pine Bluff beginning at 7:30 p.m.