Southaven, Miss—The Valdosta State Blazers secured an opening round win in the GSC tournament on Friday afternoon when they took down the Boll Weevils of Arkansas-Monticello, 74-61 at the Desoto Civic Center.
“I thought coming in, whenever you play tournament basketball, you have to have an inside game and I think we clearly established that early,” VSU head coach Mike Helfer said. “That was kind of our strategy, to go inside and not shoot as many three’s.”
VSU fell down early as UAM found themselves on top of the seventh ranked Blazers, 6-1, within the opening of minutes of play.
VSU quickly recovered as they put together an 8-0 run that sprouted VSU atop of UAM, 9-6. For the next five minutes VSU and UAM played to a near draw, however a 9-3 VSU run, that was capped off by a monster slam dunk by Tyrone Curnell who received a pass in mid-air from Tristan Crawford, gave VSU a 25-18 lead.
“You have to have a balance,” Helfer said. “When we got wide open looks we made a few and I thought that was critical.”
In the final four minutes of play, UAM failed to score as VSU took advantage and put together a 7-0 run to finish the half as VSU led 34-26 at intermission.
Tyrone Curnell led VSU in points with 13 in the opening half, while Marquis Robinson added 10 off the bench while the Blazers forced eight UAM turnovers in the opening half.
“They (Robinson and Curnell) had 23 of the 34 points down low and we started with a smaller lineup and even when we went to a bigger lineup we struggled with that,” UAM head coach Mike Newell said.
An impressive 16-6 run to start the second half sprouted VSU to an 18 point lead with 13:56 to play.
VSU’s largest lead of the contest, 21 points, came with 10:33 left to play on a 3-pointer from Ricardo Lewis, who left the game for a short period of time with an ankle injury but did return.
After falling down 21 points, UAM put together a comeback that brought the VSU lead to as little as 13 points with six minutes to play, however, a late run by VSU that was carried by Ricardo Lewis ruined any chance of a successful comeback for UAM.
All-American Tyrone Curnell led all scorers with 20 points while bringing down 13 rebounds.
“I think I played alright,” Curnell said. “I think I could have played better but I think I played alright.”
Marquis Robinson added 17 points off the bench in 19 minutes of play, which makes Robinson the leading scorer for VSU in the last three periods of play, dating back to the regular season finale versus West Georgia, with 37 points.
“I just knew it was coming into tournament play and I had to get into the game and play hard,” Robinson said. “I had to do as much as possible to help my team.”
VSU finished the game shooting 43 percent from the floor and 52 percent from 3-point range, 66.7 percent in the first half. On the afternoon, VSU outrebounded UAM 42-40, which according to Newell is something that has happened just one other time on the season.
Depth proved to be the key for the Blazers, as VSU’s bench outscored the bench of UAM 25-17 in the game, 13-5 in the opening half.
“We’ve been like this most of the year,” Helfer said. “There was a stretch in the first half where we played fix or six minutes with all five of our starters on the bench and I think the lead grew a little bit and I think you can say you have depth but when you have your bench guys on the floor, they have to get things done.”
With the win, VSU will face either Arkansas Tech or West Georgia on Saturday evening (6:45 E.T.). Arkansas-Tech was undefeated before they lost to UAM last week.
“Their very good in all areas,” Helfer said. “When you look at teams, especially in postseason play, if you have a weakness somebody is going to find it, but they don’t have many weaknesses, but I don’t think we have many weaknesses. If we are fortunate to play Arkansas Tech, it will be a great game.”
Both games, Lady Blazers and Blazers, can be heard on Talk 92.1 as Dustin Swedelson will have the call.