New Orleans, LA-Just when one would think that it wasn’t meant for the LSUS Pilots to win their first round game of the GCAC tournament against Tougaloo College, Justin Collins pushed the basketball up the floor with 7 seconds left and dished off to Travis Cash sprinting down the left side of the floor for the winning lay-up with 1.5 seconds remaining.  After a desperation shot from Tougaloo that never reached the goal, LSUS limped off the floor with an old tournament motto: “survive and advance.”  The Pilots literally were slow to get off the floor as they experienced something on this night that hasn’t happened to them before.

 

The night could have not started any worse as the Pilots lost one of their players during warm-ups.  Abraham Saxon collided with David Walker during warm-ups which resulted in not only a bloody nose, but even worse, a trip to the emergency room to find out that the nose was broken.  The Pilots tried to overcome the loss of a key teammate early trying to get out to a good start, but Tougaloo had different plans.  The first half belonged to Tougaloo’s Jeffrey Dixon who poured in 17 points.  His scoring performance was just a part of the Bulldogs success shooting the ball as they were an astounding 61% from the field during the first 20 minutes of play.  LSUS continued to battle despite shooting 20% (2-10) from behind the arc and making only 3 of 6 free throws during the first half.  Tougaloo went in at halftime with a 40 – 37 lead.

 

The Pilots were looking to pick up the intensity and the speed of the game in the second half, but struggled to get anything going.  Little did the Pilots know that the last 5 minutes of the game would be played without an injured Derrick Rogers and the last 3 minutes without Derrick Sowell.  Rogers suffered an injury to his hand that prevented him from returning and Sowell was banged up all over. The last thing Coach McDowell was looking for was for another one of their players to look at him with a grimace of pain.  Derrick Hill did just that saying that his back was hurting and he required several breaks down the stretch.  Abraham Saxon came up big for the injured Hill as he took two charges on successive trips.  “Those charges were as big as they come.  We were so happy for Abe to play well with him already feeling so bad about the unfortunate situation with David Walker,” commented Pilots head coach Chad McDowell.

 

LSUS knew they must continue to scrap and play as hard as they could.  The fans of the Pilots know that they have found so many ways to win close games this year and why would tonight be any different.  One would have began to doubt the victory with 7 seconds left after a made basket by Tougaloo’s Derrick Jarvis gave the Bulldogs a one point lead (67-66).  After the made basket, the ball was immediately in bounded to Justin Collins for the Pilots who began to sprint up the floor with the ball.  As Justin crossed half court, he realized that Travis Cash was sprinting down the left side of the floor and looked like he would be open.  Cash took the pass from Collins and proceeded to make the left-handed lay-up with only 1.5 seconds remaining.  Tougaloo called a time-out to draw up one last play, but were unable to get what they wanted and were forced to throw up a desperation shot.  The Pilots “survived and advanced” and they are excited about the opportunity to play in the semi-finals of the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference tournament.  The Pilots will play Dillard University tonight at 8:00 p.m. in Foglemann Arena located on the campus of Tulane University. 

 

Each game during this tournament can be heard via internet.  See www.lsus.edu/mensbasketball// for details. 

 

 

 

Allan Cantwell

Sports Information

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