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CHARLESTON, S.C. -- With 3:50 remaining in Thursday's Southern Conference contest against The Citadel, Samford's Tyler Hood drained a clutch 3-point basket from the top of the key to even the score at 66-66. The basket occurred on a historic night for the Bulldogs' senior sharpshooter as he earlier became just the 24^th player in 113 years of Samford basketball to reach the 1,000-point plateau.
 
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, The Citadel (7-8, 2-2 SoCon) outscored Samford (7-11, 0-5 SoCon), 11-1, in the final 2:32 of the game to register a 77-67 league victory. The win proved to be the Cadets' second straight and improved their all-time record to 9-4 against the Bulldogs.
 
"My team did not battle back tonight, we only had about four of five guys that battled back," said Samford head coach Scott Padgett. "One of the first things I said to the guys was that we have to respect this team. First of all, we lost to this team, in this same building, last year. Secondly, all we talked about this week was how good of an offensive team they are.
 
"It's amazing how bad our effort was to start the game. I think The Citadel had four offensive rebounds in the first two possessions. Obviously, I'm going to have to make a change, because we're getting off to these bad starts because we can't rebound the ball."
 
Hood, Samford's 6-foot-6 forward from Lenoir City, Tennessee, connected on his second shot of the game Thursday to reach the historic 1,000-point plateau. He entered the night needing just two points to achieve the mark and knocked down a 3-point basket at 15:59 in the first half to accomplish the feat.
 
Hood finished the contest with six points and upped his career total to 1,004.
 
Samford turned in a solid 45.8-percent shooting mark from the field Thursday, but The Citadel finished at 51 percent from the field, including a sizzling 63.6-percent outing from 3-point range.
 
The Cadets' Ashton Moore, who entered as the league's third leading scorer at 17.9 points per outing this season, tallied a game-high 20 points and finished 9-of-9 from the free-throw line. Moore scored 18 of his 20 points in the second half, nine of which occurred during The Citadel's late 11-1 run.
 
"I don't know why, but for some reason, it took us until late in the first half to even realize that we need to start pressuring these guys," Padgett said. "In our four-game winning streak, we pressured for 40 minutes, shared the ball, played great defense and rebounded well, but tonight we come out, act like we've arrived, but last I checked when you're 7-10 you haven't arrived anywhere."
 
The Bulldogs' Darius Jones-Gibson tied his career-high of 18 points and turned in a 7-of-12 performance of the field. Jones-Gibson, Samford's lithe 6-foot-1 guard from Lexington, Kentucky, was nearly unstoppable on his penetrating drives to the goal and also helped lead the Bulldogs with four rebounds.
 
Trailing 38-34 at the half, Samford opened the second stanza on an 8-3 run and garnered its first advantage of the game, 42-41, at the 15:55 mark. During the Bulldogs' scoring stretch, Jones-Gibson and Michael Bradley tallied four points apiece.
 
Bradley, Samford's 6-foot-10 senior from Chattanooga, Tennessee, came off the bench to register eight points, four rebounds, three steals and two blocked shots. He finished 3-of-7 from the field and went 2-of-2 from the charity stripe.
 
The Citadel out-rebounded Samford, 35-23, and bested the Bulldogs, 14-8, in second-chance points. The Cadets turned in a brilliant shooting performance in every facet of the game as the logged percentages of 51 from the field, 63.6 from 3-point range and 90.9 from the free-throw line.
 
"We need to rebound the ball better, especially from our big men," Padgett said. "We're not going to win any games like this, so we definitely need to rebound better from here on out. Really, all it was is that The Citadel wanted it more than we did."
 
Samford's Brandon Roberts played a key role off the bench Thursday as he scored 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field in only 17 minutes of action. Roberts, the Bulldogs' explosive shooting guard from Decatur, Alabama, also drained a team-high three 3-point baskets.
 
Combined Samford's Hood and Roberts finished 5-of-11 from beyond the arc. The rest of the team shot 0-of-8 from the field.
 
"We didn't turn the ball over a lot tonight, but we didn't share it either and we only had nine assists," Padgett said. "Today, everything seemed to be in slow motion. So, right now, we need to go back to the drawing board, go to work and learn to play for 40 minutes. I'm very disappointed in how we played tonight, because I feel like we only gave the Bulldogs' fans about 18 minutes of hard-played basketball."
 
The Samford University basketball team will next be in action Saturday at 6 p.m. (CST) as the Bulldogs conclude their five-day, two-game road swing against the Wofford Terriers in a league test to be held at Johnson Arena in Spartanburg.

Box Score
Samford Stats