BOX SCORE
LORMAN, Miss. – Prairie View A&M battled back with a vengeance as they overcame an 18-point second half deficit for a seven-point lead with two minutes left. However, three turnovers over the final 23 seconds led to five points by Alcorn State and a heartbreaking 64-62 loss.
The Panthers struggled to open the game as Alcorn State shot itself to a 20-point lead as nothing went right for the Panthers. The lead was cut to 16 on two occasions over the final 1:34 but the Braves claimed a 38-20 halftime advantage.
The Panthers exploded out the gate in the second half with eight quick points before an ASU basket en route to a 40-28 ASU lead with 18:09 remaining. The Panthers kept charging with solid play on both ends of the ball as they turned a 12-point deficit into a 49-47 lead with 5:42 left partly due to a combined 12-point effort by Montrael Scott and John Brisco during the 13-minute span.
ASU tied the contest on three occasions after the surge but the Panthers appeared to be on the verge of breaking the game open as Brisco nailed a trey followed by a layup from Scott and a dunk from Reggis Onwukamuche off a Tre Hagood assist for a 60-53 advantage with 2:08 remaining.
With PVAMU holding the seven-point lead, the offense began to stall and Alcorn State chipped away from the free throw stripe as they hit three free throws to cut its deficit to 60-56 with 39 seconds left. Two free throws by Brisco upped the margin back to six (62-56) 10 seconds later but a putback basket from Stephan Raquil saw the Panther deficit trimmed to 62-58. Both teams missed front ends of the bonus from that point and with 17 seconds left, ASU's LeAntwan Luckett nailed a trey from the right side to close the gap to 62-61.
A costly turnover by PVAMU led to another ASU possession and Luckett was fouled with two seconds left. Luckett hit both free throws for the 63-62 ASU lead and another turnover by PVAMU on the inbounds pass paved the way for ASU's Josh Nicholas to hit 1-of-2 for a 64-62 margin. PVAMU didn't have enough time to get a clean inbounds pass following the free throw attempt as ASU squeaked out the win.
Scott led PVAMU with 17 points while Brisco chipped in 15 points along with 12 from Munks. Munks nearly had a double-double with a team-high eight rebounds.
The Panthers lost out on a chance to clinch the No. 7 seed and will play as the No. 8 or No. 9 seed depending on the outcome of Mississippi Valley State's contest at Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Saturday evening. Regardless of where they finish, the Panthers open tourney play versus Mississippi Valley State on Tuesday at 8 p.m. in the Toyota Center.
