By Scott Chancey
The Albany State men's basketball team had a solid team effort,
and that was barely enough to hold off Anthony Sargent and Georgia
Southwestern. Four Rams scored in double figures while coach Chris
Cameron's team won, 83-78, Monday night in the Storm Dome.
Sargent, meanwhile, was the lone scorer in double figures for the
Hurricanes with 34 points.
"This is awesome," said Cameron, who earned his first win since
being named the team's full-time coach earlier this month. "To come
here and beat a really good team like that, and for us to be down
for most of the game, that says a lot about how resilient and how
tough-minded our team can be."
Junior college transfer Antonio Steele led the Rams with 18 points,
followed by Tyrone Evans (16), James Clark (15) and Scheraun King
(14).
Although Clark was the point guard, filling in for the injured Sean
Glenn, he came close to a double-double with eight rebounds. The
Rams, who trailed, 43-39, at halftime, shot 65 percent from the
floor after halftime and improved their record to 1-1. Albany
State, which won the SIAC tournament championship last season, has
the momentum it needs as it prepares for Thursday's conference
opener at LeMoyne-Owen.
Georgia Southwestern, meanwhile, lost its first game of the season,
but not without a valiant effort by Sargent. He had 17 points
during each half.
"I told the team before (Monday's) game that the competition would
get better with every game," Leeder said. "We really struggled
defensively. They had NBA-style mismatches. We're not as good
defensively as we were last year."
Steele is 6-foot-6 and was just one big player the Rams used;
Cameron played 10 of the Rams brought to Georgia Southwestern. The
Hurricanes, however, still led by nine points, 55-46, early during
the second half.
"When you get a nine-point lead, especially at home, good teams put
the team away," Leeder said.
The Rams had no answers for Sargent, so Cameron told his team to
challenge every one of his shots.
"I told them to make (Sargent) take high-intensity shots, and that
would be beneficial to us toward the end," Cameron said. "I told
the guys if they kept up the pressure, eventually they would get
tired."
It was only fitting that Evans scored the game's final points on a
two-handed dunk as time expired. His putback with less than five
minutes gave the Rams their first lead of the second half,
66-65.
"He played hard," Cameron said. "He was responsible for also
bringing the defensive intensity to the entire team."
Evans knew when he had a chance to step up his play.
"We were able to maximize on our mismatches," Evans said. "They had
a smaller guard on me."
Evans added a basket off an assist from Steele to make it 68-65,
but Sargent - as he seemingly did time and time again - had the
answer with a clutch shot of his own, sinking a 3-pointer to tie
the game.
With the score tied at 70, two free throws by Clark jumpstarted the
Rams final run. Evans stole and errant pass and scored on a layup,
King added a jumper and two more free throws by Clark gave the Rams
a 77-71 lead.
"We got the momentum and we wanted to stay on top and not give the
lead back," Evans said.
The Hurricanes made one final rally with two Sargent free throws
and a basket by Michael Carter to narrow the lead to 81-78.
The Rams, however, broke through Georgia Southwestern's press and
found Evans wide open for the two-handed dunk.