After winning four straight games by single-digit margins, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff earned its most dominant SWAC victory yet Monday night.
The UAPB men’s basketball team cruised to an 84-63 win against Jackson State at H.O. Clemmons Arena, extending its winning streak to five and remaining in second place in the SWAC.
UAPB (11-13, 8-3 SWAC) has had a habit of letting big second-half leads shrink, including on Saturday when Alcorn State nearly erased a 20-point UAPB lead before the Golden Lions hung on to win, 84-77.
On Monday, UAPB led 41-31 at halftime. Instead of letting Jackson State (7-17, 6-5) back into the game, the Golden Lions spent the first 10 minutes of the second half doubling their lead. A 14-0 run from the 15:06 mark to the 9:39 mark extended UAPB’s advantage to 64-42.
Four players contributed to the run, including junior guards Trevon Payton and Ramel Lloyd Jr., who each hit a 3-pointer.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
JSU sophomore guard Dorian McMillian ended the run with a 3-point play with 8:55 remaining, but the damage had been done. The Tigers didn’t get the deficit below 19 points the rest of the night.
UAPB coach Solomon Bozeman said he challenged the Golden Lions to keep winning smaller portions of the game.
“We wanted to break the game down in four-minute segments,” Bozeman said. “We wanted to win each four minutes, and we did that. Every four minutes we won, the lead went up from 10 to 13 to 15 to 20. So, just proud of our guys for being disciplined and being focused to be able to do that. Just gotta keep our foot on the gas.”
Williams collected his eighth double-double of the season, finishing with 25 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. Senior forward Jaquan Scott scored 18 points with eight rebounds. Payton finished with 13 points, and senior guard Alex Mirhosseini scored 11.
Payton and Mirhosseini combined to make 6 of 8 from 3-point range on a day the Golden Lions made 9 of 20 as a team. UAPB shot 50.9 percent from the field, its second straight game making more shots than it missed. The Golden Lions made 17 of 21 from the free throw line.
Williams had 17 points at halftime. He said by the final five minutes of the first half, he noticed the Tigers were double-teaming him.
“One of the guys was kinda like, I was walking up the court, and he was kinda like, walking with me,” Williams said. “I’m a team player, so I was just like, if they’re gonna bring two, I’m gonna just hit the open player, so that’s what I did. My teammates rewarded me and rewarded theyself with my assists, and they got buckets.”
UAPB finished with 16 assists and seven turnovers. The Golden Lions hadn’t finished a game with fewer than 10 turnovers until Monday.
The game started with ties at 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 before Scott put the Golden Lions ahead with 9:35 remaining in the first half. Mirhosseini hit the game’s first 3-pointer with 7:16 remaining in the half to end the back-and-forth trend by putting UAPB up 23-18.
The Tigers hit a pair of 3-pointers down the stretch of the first half to keep the game close, but UAPB took a 41-31 lead into halftime after finishing the first half on a 7-0 run.
After nine ties and five lead changes, UAPB led the rest of the game, achieving its largest lead of 80-54 with 3:27 remaining.
The Tigers dominated the glass in the first half, and their nine offensive rebounds helped them outscore UAPB 13-0 in second-chance points in the first half.
That trend didn’t continue past halftime. UAPB outrebounded JSU 22-16 in the second half, with JSU collecting seven offensive rebounds to UAPB’s six.
Bozeman said the Golden Lions talked about the rebounding at halftime.
“I thought in the second half, all five guys started to hit,” Bozeman said. “We started to gang rebound and do it together as a team with all five guys, and that was a better result in the second half. I still think we gave up a couple, but it wasn’t as many as it was in the first half.”
Of note, JSU senior guard Daeshun Ruffin did not play, missing his second straight game. Ruffin is averaging 23.3 points per game, including 30.3 in conference play, to lead all SWAC players. JSU is now 1-1 without him in SWAC games after beating Mississippi Valley State 97-81 without him on Saturday. Without Ruffin, McMillian led the Tigers with 24 points.
This was UAPB’s first win against Jackson State since Jan. 29, 2018, a snapping a 16-game losing streak to the Tigers.