JACKSONVILLE, Ala. — (ESPN Clarksville) If you want to be a championship-caliber team, walking into the home arena of the league-leader and emerging with a victory is a good place to start. The Govs are a championship-caliber team.
Austin Peay State University men’s basketball team built a huge early lead, weathered myriad runs by Jacksonville State and held on in the end for a 74-71 win with sweeping implications across the Ohio Valley Conference landscape.
It would be difficult to have a better start than the Govs enjoyed Saturday afternoon. Austin Peay (16-7, 8-2 OVC) built a 23-4 lead over the first eight-plus minutes of action, jump-starting the process with back-to-back three-pointers by Jarrett Givens and a variety of low-post exploits; he scored 10 of his 14 first-half points during this stretch.
Jacksonville State (16-7, 8-2 OVC) didn’t climb to the top of the league by rolling over and playing dead in their own building, and the Gamecocks mounted a comeback. Marlon Hunter reeled off six points of a subsequent 8-0 run, while Jamal Gregory contributed five in a separate 7-0 Gamecock tear. But the Govs weathered the storm, a little foul trouble and rode Taylor and Steve Harris (11 first-half points) into a 39-31 lead at halftime.
The Gamecocks were the unit who started the second half on fire, reeling off a quick 6-0 run to force a timeout and bring the game to within a bucket. A Zach Glotta three stopped the skid for the Govs, but Jacksonville State finally tied it up with a pair of Ty Hudson free-throws and a Hunter jumper just before the first media timeout of the half.
Another Glotta three plugged the Govs back in and Austin Peay took off on a 13-2 run to reestablish a double-digit lead with just under 10 minutes to play, and hovered near double-figures until the five-minute mark. That’s when Jacksonville State embarked on a 17-8 run, culminating in a Jason Burnell three-point play with 59 seconds to play to make it a one-point game.
A charge call on the Govs gave the ball back to Jacksonville State, and Hudson made two at the line to give Jacksonville State its first and only lead of the day with 39 seconds to play. On the ensuing possession, the Govs got the ball to Taylor on the left wing, and he found Jabari McGhee cutting to the basket, hitting him in rhythm for a bucket and the foul; McGhee, who entered the game as a 54.5 percent shooter at the line, calmly sank the and-one to put the Govs up by a bucket with 21 seconds to play.
Jacksonville State’s next possession ended in a missed Hudson three, with Taylor corralling the rebound and drawing the foul; he made one-of-two and Harris deflected a 50-foot, last-gasp pass from Burnell attempting to set up one final look for the Gamecocks as time expired.