Trojans fall to James Madison
It was a tight battle for all 40 minutes, but the Troy men’s basketball team couldn’t close it out late, falling to James Madison 64-61 at the Atlantic Union Bank Center on Wednesday night.
Troy (15-8, 8-4 SBC) took a one-point lead with 1:18 remaining in the game, but James Madison (15-9, 8-4 SBC) went on a 5-0 run, which included three free-throws, in the final 54 seconds to beat the Trojans. Marcus Rigsby Jr. took a three-point shot as time expired but couldn’t get it to fall to force overtime.
Troy is now 3-2 on the road during conference play this season, with both losses coming down to the final seconds of the game. With the loss, Troy moves into a tie for second play in the Sun Belt standings with six conference games remaining.
The Trojans and Dukes came out slow on offense early, as Troy led 11-9 at the under-12 media timeout. The two teams started to find a better offensive rhythm as the half progressed, and a late JMU bucket gave it a 32-28 lead going into the halftime break. Tayton Conerway had a team-high seven points going into the locker room. Troy shot 37.9 percent from the field in the half, while James Madison sat at 44.4 percent.
James Madison came out quick in the second half and jumped ahead by seven. Troy battled back and was able to stay within striking distance. It seemed that JMU was close to breaking open the game after a Mark Freeman layup pushed the Dukes’ lead to eight with 9:34 left to play. The Trojans once again had an answer, as they went on a 7-1 run to cut the JMU lead to 52-50 with 7:37 left in the game.
The two teams continued to trade blows as regulation slowly expired. Troy took its first and only second-half lead on Jackson Fields layup with just over one minute to go. However, JMU’s Freeman scored three straight points to push the lead back in the Dukes favor. Troy was unable to even things up as time expired.
Conerway was crucial to Troy’s late comeback, as he scored 11 points in the final 20 minutes on 5-7 shooting. He finished the night as Troy’s leading scorer with 18 points. He has now scored double-digit points in all 12 conference games this season. He also led the Trojans with seven rebounds. Troy was plus-nine when he was on the court.
Marcus Rigsby Jr. also had 11 points for Troy, giving him back-to-back double figure scoring performances after he had 17 against ULM this past Saturday.
Despite the loss, Troy performed well in a lot of areas. The Trojans outrebounded JMU 35-28 and had 16 offensive rebounds. Troy also had 30 points in the paint compared to JMU’s 18.
Elijah Hutchins-Everett and Bryce Lindsay each had 14 points to lead the Dukes.
The Trojans finished the night going 24-57 (42.1 percent) from the field and 6-22 (27.3 percent) from deep. James Madison was 21-48 (43.8 percent) shooting and 8-22 (36.4 percent) from three. The Dukes also took 19 free-throw attempts compared to Troy’s 11.
Quotable – head coach Scott Cross
“Obviously it’s disappointing. We turned the ball over too much at the beginning of both halves, and that burned us. They are a good basketball team. They have three shooters who are as good as anybody in the league. Our guys played hard, but I didn’t think we had the edge on defense we needed to be great.”
Up Next
Troy takes a short pause from Sun Belt play as it travels to Oxford, Ohio, to take on Miami (OH) in the second game of the MAC-SBC Challenge. Tipoff is set for 12 p.m. CT and will be broadcast on ESPN+ and the Troy Sports Media Network. Conference play resumes next Wednesday when Troy plays on the road against Louisiana.
(Press Release from Troy University)
