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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The Samford University basketball team's season-high, five-game winning streak came to an abrupt end Thursday as The Citadel's Ashton Moore bounced home a 19-foot jumper at the final buzzer to topple the Bulldogs, 66-65, in a back-and-forth contest held at the Pete Hanna Center.
 
"The team that deserved to win, won tonight," said Samford head coach Scott Padgett. "I told these guys before the game that once you think you've arrived, that's when you get your butt kicked. In the first half, that was an embarrassment. They shot 65 percent from the field and 86 percent from the 3. It was a straight embarrassment.
 
"I don't know who our guys thought we were tonight, because the team that won five games in a row was the team that played harder than anybody in the conference. Tonight, we were not aggressive going to the rim and we settled for too many 3-point attempts. I bet we missed at least seven point-blank layups and the offense has nothing to do with it."
 
With 4.2 seconds remaining on the clock, Samford (12-15, 5-9 SoCon) held a 65-64 advantage over The Citadel (9-15, 4-9 SoCon) following a free throw from senior center Michael Bradley.
 
After a timeout, the Cadets inbounded the ball from the right sideline and eventually found Moore near midcourt. Moore, The Citadel's top offensive player and fourth leading scorer in the Southern Conference, gathered the pass and took four three quick dribbles down the right flank.
 
Samford's defense retreated on the play and Moore pulled up for a wide-open jumper from just inside the 3-point line.
 
In the air, Moore's shot was on line, but it hit the front rim. The Bulldogs' fans began to cheer in excitement, but then the ball inexplicably bounced forward and up into the air and eventually hit the top right portion of the rim. At the point, the ball's backspin carried it into the cylinder and through the net for the game-winning shot.
 
Moore's bucket proved to be his seventh of the game as he finished with 17 points and six assists in 34 minutes of playing time.
 
"I said before the game that if we come to play, we'll win, but if we don't then we'll lose," Padgett said. "This was very disappointing, because I'd thought that we'd matured past that point and now we've taken a step back."
 
Neither team led by more than six points Thursday as both squads battled hard in a tight SoCon matchup.
 
Samford trailed by five, 57-52, with 8:01 remaining in the contest, but then quickly used a 3-point basket from Christen Cunningham and a driving layup from Darius Jones-Gibson to even the score at 57-57 at the 4:47 mark.
 
"When we finally decided to turn it on in the second half, we didn't play too bad offensively," Padgett said. "This is no disrespect to The Citadel, but they came in here struggling. If we would have gotten after them in the first 10 minutes of the game, then the game might have been over, but we let (Jake) Wright bang four 3s in the first 10 minutes and it gave them confidence."
 
The combatants exchanged three lead changes in the final 4:25 of action Thursday before Cunningham drained a huge 3-pointer to give Samford a 64-61 advantage with 1:10 to play.
 
Immediately after Cunningham's 3-pointer, the Bulldogs' full-court defensive pressure caused another Cadet turnover and Jones-Gibson led a 2-on-1 fast-break towards The Citadel's basket.
 
Jones-Gibson handed off a pass to Cunningham near the goal, but the freshman's layup attempt rolled over the back of the rim and came off the other side to the Cadets' Brian White. The Citadel's Moore then knocked down a 3-pointer from the top of the key on the next play to even the score at 64-64.
 
On Samford's final possession, Bradley was fouled on an inbounds play and knocked down the front end of a 1-and-1 to give the Bulldogs their late 65-64 advantage.
 
Jones-Gibson led Samford with 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field. He also added five rebounds, three assists, a blocked shot and a steal. Cunningham followed with 10 points and five assists for the Bulldogs, while Evan Taylor, Tyler Hood, Nnamdi Enechionyia, Brandon Roberts and Alex Peters all finished with six points apiece.
 
Bradley led Samford with seven rebounds and added five points and three blocked shots.
 
The Citadel finished with four players scoring in double figures and shot 50 percent from the field, including a sizzling 66.7 percent from 3-point range (10-of-15). Jake Wright, the Cadets' true freshman sharpshooter from Hopkins, Minnesota, turned in a 6-of-9 performance from beyond the arc.
 
Samford outscored The Citadel, 28-16, in the paint and 20-5 in bench scoring. The Bulldogs also forced the Cadets into 16 turnovers, but only outscored The Citadel by two points, 14-12, in points-off turnovers.
 
Thursday's loss snapped Samford's five-game winning streak and ended the Cadets' six-game losing stretch.
 
"Now, we have two very tough games coming up with Chattanooga on the road and then Mercer at home," said Padgett. "We could not take that step back tonight. We had to come ready to play. You have to and we didn't. That's on me, because I did not get them ready to play."
 
The Samford University basketball team will next be in action Saturday at 5 p.m. (CST) as the Bulldogs head to Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a critical Southern Rail Rivalry road test against the Chattanooga Mocs to be held at The McKenzie Arena.

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