Dec. 27, 2006

Box Score

BATON ROUGE - In the opening game of the 2006 Hispanic College Funds Classic, the Samford University basketball team rallied in overtime to post a hard-fought 64-59 victory over the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils. The non-conference game was held at LSU's Maravich Center.

Following the win, Samford (6-4) will square off against Wright State on Thursday at 5 p.m., in day two of the three-day competition.

"I kind of expected us to start off slowly on offense, but even in the second half, I don't think that we ever got into a groove on that end of the floor," said head coach Jimmy Tillette. "We missed a ton of wide open shots throughout the game and I think that we struggled defensively. We'll need to play a lot better than this against Wright State tomorrow."

With the loss, Mississippi Valley State (3-7) had its two-game winning streak snapped. The Delta Devils are scheduled to face the 17th-ranked LSU Tigers on Thursday.

Samford's Randall Gulina finished with a game-high 26 points, while senior Jerry Smith followed with 19 points, all of which came in the second half. Smith, the Bulldogs' native of nearby Picayune, Miss., scored the team's final five points of the game and tallied his seventh double-figure performance of the season.

Samford shot 42.9 percent from the field and only knocked down 26.3 percent of its shots from 3-point range.

"Randall played well offensively, but he struggled on the defensive side of the ball," Tillette said. "I think that the time off for Christmas hurt us with our offensive rhythm, just because it is so precision-based. We could never seem to get into our sets very smoothly and I also have to give Mississippi Valley State some credit. They played very hard."

Mississippi Valley State was led in scoring by Stanford Speech with 14 points. The Delta Devils' junior from Jackson, Tenn., finished with a 6-of-17 performance from the field. Senior guard Tick Snow followed with 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting for MVSU.

With the score of the game knotted at 51-51 before the end of regulation, the Delta Devils missed a pair of possible game-winning shots. The Bulldogs finally picked up the rebound with two seconds remaining to send the game into overtime.

Samford rallied for 13 points in the extra period, using six points from Gulina, five from Smith and two from Travis Peterson. The Bulldogs' defense only allowed Mississippi Valley State to score eight points in overtime.

"Jerry (Smith) played well for us in the second half and I think he did a good job of looking for his shot," said Tillette. "He also made some clutch free throws for us down the stretch, but I still think that we turned the ball over way to much in the game."

In a low-scoring first half of play, Samford started to heat up late in the period and took a 24-16 lead into the intermission.

The Bulldogs' Gulina led all scorers at the half with 11 points. Samford's senior guard from Baton Rouge, La., was 3-for-5 from the field and finished the opening period with a perfect 4-for-4 performance from the charity stripe.

Mississippi Valley State's Snow scored eight points on 3-of-6 shooting in the first half to lead the Delta Devils.

At the 9:04 mark in the opening half of play, the score of the game was tied at 4-4 before Samford used a 14-2 run to take an 18-6 advantage.

The Bulldogs played stifling defense against Mississippi Valley State in the opening period and held the Delta Devils scoreless for over 10 minutes in the first half. From the 17:20 mark until Speech hit a jumper at 6:50 remaining, Samford kept Mississippi Valley State from scoring a point.

The Samford University basketball team will continue play in the 2006 Hispanic College Funds Classic on Thursday as the Bulldogs square off against the Wright State Raiders at 5 p.m. The three-day, four-team competition is being hosted by LSU at the Maravich Center in Baton Rouge, La.