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KATY, Texas – Southeastern Louisiana wasn’t in the mood for a one-and-done visit to Merrell Center on Wednesday evening, which meant having to dispatch a University of New Orleans team which they had squeaked by six days earlier. While the Privateers were game, the Lions assured themselves of at least one more game by relying on their new found offense.
A barrage of 3-pointers proved to the difference, as Southeastern Louisiana held off UNO in an 84-74 win which also marked the third victory the Lions claimed over the Privateers in a stretch of 14 days. The win pushed fifth-seed Southeastern Louisiana to a date against fourth-seed Houston Baptist Thursday afternoon at 5 pm. The game can be seen on ESPN3.
“Survive and advance, that’s what we want to do,” said Lions coach Jay Ladner. “Playing them a third time was going to be tough. I don’t think there were secrets either way. We knew what to expect from them and they knew what to expect from us.”
En route to winning for the ninth time in their past 12 games, Southeastern Louisiana (12-20), continued an offensive surge which did not resemble a team which finished next to last in the conference in points per game. The Lions drilled 12 of their 25 attempts from beyond the arc, with five coming from third-team all-conference member Zay Jackson, who scored a team-high 17 points, as five players scored in double figures.
Wednesday marked the eighth time in their current 12-game run that Southeastern Louisiana has scored at least 75 points. The Lions shot 49 percent from the field and held the lead for good after Dominic Veal’s basket gave them a 12-11 advantage with 15:40 left in the first half.
UNO, which trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half, had its persistence pay off when Christavious Gill’s driving layup drew the Privateers to within 56-54 with 14:23 left, but consecutive treys from Joshua Filmore and Jackson allowed Southeastern to open the door to a 16-2 run which expanded the Lions’ lead to 74-58 at the 10:15 mark. UNO did itself no favors on the offensive end, as they endured a 5:52 drought without a field goal that slowly sunk their hopes of extending their season.
Gill, a member of the All-Conference third team, was unable to find his touch after intermission, as he connected on just two of his 11 field goal attempts in the second half. After scoring 12 in the first half, he was limited to just six points in the final 20 minutes due to the Lions’ ability to collapse their perimeter defense upon him and constantly kept a hand in his face.
“We just tried to run him off the line,” said Jackson of Southeastern Louisiana’s perimeter defense. “Gill’s 5’7, so if we run off the line, then he has to run into one of our bigs, so he had to throw something up. We just didn’t want him to continue to kill us from outside.”
Still, the Privateers made one last attempt to draw closer and were able to get as close as eight points with 1:50 remaining, yet the Lions sunk their final four free throw attempts to seal the deal.
Both teams shot at a frantic pace during the first half, as the Lions shot 57 percent from the field, while the Privateers connected on half of their attempts. New Orleans would have been blown out of the gym had it not been for Nate Frye and Gill, who combined for seven of the team’s eight first half treys. Frye had 14 points in the opening 20 minutes, yet finished with 21 on the evening as the Privateers managed to hit just three of their 14 second half attempts from beyond the arc.
“We felt that we had a good game plan,” said New Orleans coach Mark Slessinger, whose team finished the season with a 10-20 record. “The big thing was that we weren’t perfect defensively. We just didn’t get the stops we needed to.”
POSTGAME QUOTES:
Southeastern Louisiana Head Coach Jay Ladner
On today’s game…
“I’m really proud. Our theme is ‘survive and advance,‘ and anytime you can do that at this time in the season its good. I borrowed that from Coach Jimmy Valvano: survive and advance. The difficult challenge that we had tonight is that we had played New Orleans twice in about the last 10 days. To play them a third time, we knew was going to be tough. I don’t think there were secrets for either team. We knew what to expect from them and they knew what to expect from us. I thought our guys were ready to play and locked in mentally. They did a good job of carrying out our game plan. We got sloppy at times with some executions and illegal screens, which falls on me. Overall, I’m really proud of the team. I’m looking forward to playing again tomorrow. We have Houston Baptist. They whipped us pretty good last time we played them. We prefer to give a better effort next game.”
On UNO tying the game at 56…
“UNO quickly came out of the gates, hitting a 3-pointer to start the second half, then got an old fashion 3-point-play. They erased our seven-point lead; it went to one (point) quickly. We’ve played them, they don’t quit. We played them less than a week ago and when we played in Hammond we had a lead, but they came back and cut our lead down to eight, so we knew they we’re going to go away. I thought our guys did a good job of not losing their pose and composure at that point. We hit a couple big shots and quickly stretched the lead. I wasn’t happy late in the game with the number of second-chance shots. They do a great job of rebounding the ball offensively. I thought we were doing a good job offensively, other than we weren’t finishing possession of rebounds. We knew the come-back was coming so we weren’t surprised, but again I was proud of the pose and composure met them with at that time.”
Southeastern Louisiana Senior Guard Zay Johnson
On perimeter defense…
“In the second half, we tried to run them off the line. (Christavious) Gill is 5’7” so we know he can’t get it into the bigs and he’ll have to throw some up. At the end, we needed some extra offensive rebounds and we needed our bigs to step up. We just didn’t want them to continue to do so well from the outside.”
Southeastern Louisiana Junior Guard Joshua Filmore
On shooting and control of clock…
“Once we got a certain lead, the time started ticking down and we understood that it was time to start slowing it down. We had to try to control the temp, get more shots up and get more stops.”
New Orleans Head Coach Mark Slessinger
On the loss…
“Obviously we’re disappointed in how the season ended. We felt like we had good rhythm going into tonight’s game. We thought we prepared well, we thought we played our game plan and we played them competitively.”
On playing Southeastern recently…
“Three times in fourteen days is a pretty high frequency. We knew all their calls and they knew all of ours. In the end, it came down to them executing better than us.”
New Orleans Junior Guard Nate Frye
On lack of defense…
“The thing is, if we’re not scoring, we need to get stops and that was the problem throughout the evening. In the beginning of the second half, we started getting stops but we just couldn’t finish.”
New Orleans Senior Forward Kevin Hill
On the offense on the perimeter…
“I think the guards did a great job of getting the forwards the ball on the inside when it was available and did a great job all night of hitting outside shots. In the first half, I believe we hit about eight threes. But like coach and Nate said: we have to get stops.”