Samford rallies late to beat McNeese, 83-75

NICEVILLE, Florida – McNeese’s Myles Lewis scored a season-high 20 points with eight rebounds, Kellon Taylor added 13 points and T.J. Moss 12, but Samford knocked down 23 of 26 from the free throw line and forced the Cowboys into crucial late turnovers.

The Bulldogs outscored McNeese 12-2 during a critical part of the game down the stretch and escaped with an 83-75 win in the consolation finals of the Emerald Coast Classic on the campus of Northwest Florida State College.

McNeese (3-4) led 69-68 with 6:58 to play after Johnathan Massie hit one of two free throws but Samford started a 12-2 run over the next four minutes to grab an 80-71 lead following a basket by Ques Glover with 2:08 to play. The Cowboys turned the ball over five times during the run leading to eight Bulldog points.

“We had some costly turnovers late,” said head coach John Aiken. “I think it was fatigue. But I thought we learned a lot the last two games. We established our offensive identity a bit and we saw again our defensive identity. When we’re right, we’re really good.”

That defensive identity escaped the Cowboys late in the first half when Samford (5-1) went into the break leading 50-40.

“We dug ourselves a hole in the first half,” said Aiken. “We lost ourselves defensively. There were several times on offense when we had 2 on 1 or 3 on 1 and didn’t get a shot off. I should’ve called timeout. That’s on me.”

McNeese led for the first 10 minutes of the game as it started things off with back-to-back three-pointers by Lewis and Taylor.

Samford took its first lead at the 9:36 mark following a couple of free throws by Glover then after the game was tied 28-28 with 6:24 to play in the half, Samford went on a 10-2 run to go up 38-30 at the 3:10 mark and then 48-36 following a Wesley Cardet three-pointer with under a minute to play before Harwin Francois answered with a 3 and Massie made a free throw with 2 seconds remaining.

McNeese stormed out of the gate in the second half and took the lead 56-55 following a Christian Shumate 3 with 13:03 to play then both teams battled back-and-forth until Samford started its 12-2 run. The Cowboys hit just 3 of 8 from the free throw line in the final 6:58 while Samford knocked down all five of its freebies during that span.

“They made a bunch of free throws and we didn’t, especially in the second half where we missed some at key moments,” said Aiken.

McNeese shot the ball well, hitting 47 percent from the field (25 of 53) and was 8 of 22 from long range, but the Cowboys connected on just 17 of 26 from the free throw line (65 percent) while Samford knocked down 23 of 26 for 89 percent.

The Bulldogs, who were led in scoring by Glover’s 24 points, shot 43 percent from the field (26 for 61) and 8 of 34 from long range (24 percent).

Both teams pulled down 31 rebounds and both scored 28 points in the paint.

The Cowboys turned the ball over 27 times that led to 32 Samford points off turnovers while McNeese scored just 22 points off 23 Bulldog turnovers.