Jan. 7, 2008

Box Score

JACKSONVILLE, Ala. - In the final Ohio Valley Conference matchup between in-state rivals Samford and Jacksonville State, the Bulldogs' basketball team escaped Pete Mathews Coliseum with a hard-fought 57-53 victory Monday. Senior Joe Ross Merritt scored a team-high 15 points, 13 of which came in the second half.

"We started with great energy tonight and it was the complete converse of how we played against UT Martin," said Samford head coach Jimmy Tillette. "We shot the ball well and we were focused, but we had 23 points at halftime, 21 of which came via the 3-point shot. Therefore, we abandoned our inside game and I have to give credit to JSU. They really worked hard to obviously make a game out of it."

With the win, Samford (7-7, 4-2 OVC) extended its winning streak against Jacksonville State (2-12, 0-6 OVC) to five-straight games and improved to 51-37 in the all-time series.

Since the Bulldogs are moving to the esteemed Southern Conference next season, the in-state rivalry between Samford and Jacksonville State will probably come to an end. The teams have faced off against each other 88 times since 1921.

"After tonight, we're not likely to play Jacksonville State anymore," Tillette said. "I hate playing against my friends and (Jacksonville State head coach) Mike (LaPlante) is a great friend of mine. I always hated playing against Don Maestri from Troy and I hate playing against Billy Kennedy at Murray State. It's a no-win situation and I have very few friends, so I need to keep as many as possible."

Samford's Merritt led his team with 15 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field. The Bulldogs' 6-foot-4 guard from Oklahoma City, Okla., was only 1-for-4 from the floor in the opening half, but caught fire down the stretch and made his final seven shot attempts of the game.

Merritt finished 2-for-5 from beyond the arc Monday and Samford was 11-for-25 on 3-point attempts for a 44-percent mark from downtown. Jacksonville State only shot 38.5 percent from the field and 25 percent from beyond the arc.

The Bulldogs' Josh Bedwell, who was coming off a career-high 20-point performance against UT Martin on Saturday, continued his hot shooting against Jacksonville State with 12 points on a 4-of-9 outing from the field. All four of his field goals came from 3-point range as he finished with a team-high four 3-point baskets.

In 14 games this season, Bedwell has made at least one 3-point shot in 10 of the team's contests.

"I thought that we took pretty good shots all game," said Tillette. "Even though we didn't score many points from inside, I still wanted to throw the ball inside to collapse the defense some. In the second half, we had too many turnovers. It was ridiculous. It's hard to sustain 19 turnovers, because we don't play fast enough."

Samford's sophomore point guard Trey Montgomery finished with 11 points and a team-high six rebounds, but committed seven turnovers. The Bulldogs tied a season-high with 19 turnovers that was only duplicated on Dec. 29 against 20th-ranked Clemson.

"I have to give Jacksonville State a lot of credit for how they played us tough on the defensive end of the court," Tillette said. "Their press was effective and they made us speed up in our offensive sets. On the other hand, I don't think that our guys did a great job of possessing the ball."

Samford jumped out to a 20-4 advantage to start the game, but Jacksonville State trimmed the Bulldogs' lead to 23-19 at the half. In the opening period of play, seven of Samford's eight field goals came from 3-point range.

In the second half, the Bulldogs quickly extended their lead to 16 points with 7:57 remaining in the game, but once again the Gamecocks rallied back to cut their deficit to 49-47 with 1:46 to play.

Jacksonville State was led in scoring by Jonathan Toles' 17 points on 6-of-11 shooting, while Will Ginn added 16 points and knocked down 4-of-13 three-point attempts.

With its two-point lead and just over a minute left in the game, Samford played possession basketball down the stretch and made 7-of-8 key free throws to hang on to the victory. All eight of the Bulldogs' free-throw attempts came in the second half.

The Samford University basketball team will next be in action Thursday at 7:30 p.m., as the Bulldogs begin a brief two-game OVC homestand against the Tennessee State Tigers in the Pete Hanna Center.