LARGO, Md. – Johnson C. Smith snapped Bowie State's 3-game win streak with an 80-76 non-conference overtime win on Thursday evening at the Novak Fieldhouse on the campus of Prince George's Community College. This was a designated non-conference game as the two teams will meet again in Charlotte (January 9) where it will count in CIAA play.
PHOTOS (Courtesy of Yusuf Abdullah)
"We have to find a way to win games, whether it's conference or non-conference", said Bowie State Head Coach
Darrell Brooks. "We also have to find a way to finish games … I thought we played really good defense in the first half, went up by 11 points, took two bad shots then turned the ball over and they got life".
Seniors
Cameron Hayes (Upper Marlboro, Md.) and
Rinardo Perry (Washington, D.C.) came off the Bulldogs bench to lead Bowie State with 20 and 14 points respectively. Senior
Saiquan Jamison (Upper Marlboro, Md.) just missed a double-double hauling down a game-high 13 rebounds to go along with nine points.
Bowie State (5-6) edged Johnson C. Smith on the glass, holding a slim 44-42 advantage and the Bulldogs held a decisive advantage in bench points, outscoring the Golden Bulls 50-12.
Johnson C. Smith (6-2) was led by Cayse Minor with a game-high 30 points with 17 coming in the first 20 minutes of action. Justice Goodloe added 16 points for the Golden Bulls and Augustine Ominu pulled down a team-high seven rebounds in the win.
The first 10 minutes of the game saw Johnson C. Smith lead until a Hayes triple created the games' fourth tie, this time at 17-all at the 9:15 mark. A pair of Hayes free throws gave Bowie State its first lead of the night, but a Goodloe layup knotted the score at 19-19. JCSU's Minor drilled his third 3-pointer of the first half to shift the advantage back over to the Golden Bulls at 26-24 with 3:59 remaining in the first half.
The Bulldogs closed the first half with an 11-3 run and went into halftime leading the Golden Bulls by a score of 35-29. Bowie State shot 42 percent from the field (10-of-24) in the first 20 minutes compared to 39 percent (10-of-26) for Johnson C. Smith.
Bowie State kept Johnson C. Smith at bay the majority of the second half, leading by as much as 11 points (46-35) at the 14:57 mark. Johnson C. Smith responded with an 9-0 run to trim the Bulldogs lead down to two (46-44) a little over two minutes later. The Bulldogs pushed its lead up to six (62-56) by the 4:50 mark but went cold allowing the Golden Bulls to use a 7-1 burst to knot the score at 63-all via a follow-up layup by Goodloe.
Ominu calmly converted a pair of free throws to give the lead back to JCSU but a Jamison layup created the games' ninth tie (65-65) of the contest. Both teams had a chance to win it in regulation, but 40 minutes would not be enough to determine a winner.
Johnson C. Smith scored the first eight points of the overtime period before Bowie State senior
Juwan Smith (Lexington Park, Md.) knocked down a pair of free throws stopped the Golden Bulls run. Unfortunately, Bowie State went 4-of-13 (31 percent) from the field in the extra period compared to 4-of-5 (80 percent) for Johnson C. Smith. The Golden Bulls also made 7-of-10 free throws in overtime to seal the win.
The Bowie State Bulldogs will have little time to rest before returning to action on Saturday (December 14) hosting the Claflin University Panthers at 4 p.m. in BSU's A.C. Jordan Arena.
