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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The Samford University basketball team committed 18 turnovers and turned in a sub-par 51.9-percent shooting mark (14-of-27) from the free-throw line Friday as the Bulldogs dropped a tough 72-70 double-overtime loss against the South Alabama Jaguars in front of 1,864 frenzied, Christmas holiday fans at the Pete Hanna Center.
 
"We have to be a tougher team," said Samford head coach Scott Padgett. "We can't lose a game when the reasons were we made the other team miss shots, but then we couldn't just get the rebounds. We gave up 22 offensive rebounds tonight and that is embarrassing. We have stuff to learn. Our guys are trying, but it's just one of those things where they beat us tonight in toughness."
 
Samford (7-4) entered its first home game against South Alabama (4-6) since Jan. 31, 1976, shooting 74 percent from the free-throw line.
 
With mere seconds remaining in regulation and the score deadlocked at 62-62, Samford's Marcus Johnson shot a possible game-winning 3-pointer from the right flank. Johnson's attempt missed the rim to the left side, but true freshman Wyatt Walker was in perfect position to catch the shot and attempt the game-winning put-back.
 
Walker was fouled hard by the Jaguars' John Brown with :0.8 seconds remaining in the contest and went to the line to shoot a pair of free throws.
 
Walker, the Bulldogs' true freshman center from Jacksonville, Florida, stepped to the line for the possible game-winning free throw and missed the first attempt. South Alabama head coach Matthew Graves then called timeout to add some more pressure to the youngster's mindset.
 
On the second attempt, Walker's stroke looked smooth and confident, but the ball hit the front rim, rolled slowly around the left side of the cylinder and bounced unluckily off the backboard.
 
With the miss, Samford and South Alabama both moved to their first overtime of the 2015-16 campaign.
 
"To be honest with you, when Wyatt got to the line at the end of the game, it was an 'oh wow' moment for him," said Padgett. "I don't know if he was ever in that position at his high school, but this was big for him. But now that it's over, he's going to learn from this. He didn't die. He missed the two free throws, but you know what, we still had chances to win in both overtimes. Next time, he'll realize that there's no pressure, because he'll know that you can't lose the game if you miss them."
 
In the first overtime, it was the Jaguars that missed their possible game-winning shot at the buzzer. With the game knotted at 64-64, South Alabama's Tafari Whittingham attempted a deep 3-pointer at the horn. His shot came up short and Alex Peters grabbed the rebound to send the game into double overtime.
 
Friday's contest marked Samford's first double-overtime appearance since Feb. 28, 2013, when the Bulldogs lost a similarly heartbreaking contest at Appalachian State, 70-67.
 
In the final stanza of Friday's marathon 50-minute game, South Alabama built a five-point lead following a pair of free throws from Williams with 20 seconds left to play. At the moment, things didn't look good for the Bulldogs, but then Samford true freshman Matt Rose drained a deep, fall-way 3-pointer from the right wing to cut the Jaguars' lead to 72-70 with five seconds left.
 
Even better for the Bulldogs, Whittingham clanged both of his free throws with four seconds remaining and Rose grabbed the rebound. He quickly passed it out to Christen Cunningham at the midcourt logo and Samford's sophomore point guard nicely evaded a pair of South Alabama defenders.
 
With the final seconds ticking off, Cunningham drifted towards the right flank, but wasn't able to get a shot off before the final buzzer sounded.
 
Samford's 72-70 double-overtime loss to South Alabama proved to be the team's first non-conference home defeat under Padgett, blemishing a previously perfect 7-0 record.
 
"I don't want to take anything away from South Alabama at all," said Padgett. "They did what they needed to do tonight. We were struggling against the zone, so they stayed in it and we struggled all night against it. They figured out that if they just get one up on the rim, then they would have a good chance to get it, because we weren't blocking them out."
 
The Bulldogs' Darius Jones-Gibson scored a game-high 20 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field. He also added three assists and a trio of steals, but committed a team-high five turnovers. Rose, the reigning Southern Conference Player of the Week, equaled his career-high total of 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting and connected on a team-best three 3-point field goals.
 
Iman Johnson and Marcus Johnson both added nine points apiece for Samford, while Cunningham followed with eight.
 
South Alabama concluded Friday's contest with four players scoring in double figures. Williams notched a team-high 19, while Nick Stover added 14 points and Georgi Boyanov finished with a double-double (12 points and 10 rebounds). Whittingham came off the bench to add 19 good minutes and tallied 10 points and eight rebounds.
 
"Between offensive rebounds and missed free throws, we gave this game away," Padgett said. "We had three 80-percent free-throw shooting guys go 3-for-12 tonight in this loss. That's mental toughness. I don't want to single any guys out, but that can't happen if you want to win close games against tough opponents."
 
The Samford University basketball team will next be in action Sunday at 6 p.m. (CST) as the Bulldogs fly to Lincoln, Nebraska, for a marquee Big Ten Network game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The contest will be held at the University of Nebraska's sparkling new Pinnacle Bank Arena.
 
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