MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- Jamel Waters scored a team-high 15 points and had a game-high six assists to lead Alabama State to a 59-52 win over Western Illinois in a defensive struggle.
"We were trying to get him (Jamel) going and he is a vital part of our offense as far as getting other people involved and also getting himself involved," Head Coach Lewis Jackson said. He was in a little bit of a funk there and we wanted to get him going so we tried to call his number some to get him going and he got aggressive and made some good things happen for us."
After taking a one point lead into the locker room, the Hornets came out in the second half and only scored three points over the first five minutes of the second half. In the meantime, WIU could only score six points, but still went into the first media timeout with a 28-26 lead.
From there the Hornets went on a 9-0 run over the next six minutes to take a 35-28 lead, and it would be a lead that the Hornets would never relinquish.
"We needed to play with more energy and we tried to push the ball more and tried to make them speed up the game a little more (in the second half)," Jackson said. "A long layoff not playing for 10 days and we came out and we were dragging a little bit."
"We came in and talked to them and told them we have to hit the boards and push the ball and we were able to do that early on in the second half. It was just a hard-fought game. We didn't play as well as I thought we could play, but it was good to get a W."
WIU (4-5) came into the game on a three game winning streak and was holding their opponents to only 38 percent shooting. They held the Hornets to 39.6 (19-48) percent shooting, but ASU hit 17 of their 28 free throw attempts (61%).
The Hornets defense played a little better against the Leathernecks as they were shooting 47 percent from the field during their first eight games. ASU's defense held them to 39.3 percent (22-56).
ASU forced 15 turnovers and was able to score 18 points off those turnovers.
"We saw some improvement on defense, but we still let them get in the lane too much," Jackson said. "The thing we were trying to do was keep them out of the lane and take jump shots because they like to attack the basket. We tried to keep the ball out of their big's hands. I thought we did a pretty good job of that tonight."
DeMarcus Robinson joined Waters in double digits with 10 points while Maurice Strong added nine points and nine rebounds. He also added a game-high four blocked shots.
Adam Link scored a game-high 16 points and also had nine rebounds to lead Western Illinois. Teammate Jordan Foster scored 11, including hitting three of his four three-point attempts.
ASU (4-3) took a slim 23-22 lead into the locker room at halftime despite going almost six minutes without scoring. ASU had built a 19-13 lead on a LeFlore three with 8:03 left in the first half, but did not score again until the 2:26 mark on a layup from Strong. By then the Leathernecks had gone on a 9-0 run to take a 22-19 lead.
Graham and Robinson had six first half points to lead the Hornets in scoring. ASU shot 43.5 percent from the field and held WIU to 37 percent.
Link led the visitors with eight first half points and Foster added six on two three point field goals.
"We are still learning," Jackson said. "We have 13 new players and we have three guys that got significant minutes last year so we're still trying to get everyone to jell together and with 13 new guys it always takes a little time and we're still growing as a team. We are going to come to work every day and try to improve."
ASU will be back in action this weekend when they travel to New Orleans to play in the Tulane Westin Holiday Classic. They open the tournament against the host team Tulane Saturday Dec. 21 at 2 p.m. On Sunday they will face Wisconsin-Milwaukee at 3 p.m.
Box Score
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