Five in a row: Southern's women blitz Alabama State's zone defense to extend winning streak

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana -- From Saturday’s opening tip in Southern’s 66-58 win against Alabama State, the Hornets shrunk into a 2-3 zone to dictate Southern's scoring opportunities.

The Hornets' plan was to limit layups and force the Jaguars to put it up from outside.

Southern, which was shooting 24.9 percent from 3-point territory going into the game, overcame the zone to improve to 7-9 and 6-1 against the Southwestern Athletic Conference while winning its season-high fifth straight game.

When it couldn't penetrate, Southern’s offense connected on 5 of 17 3-point tries. When it could, the Jaguars piled on 28 points in the paint, a third of their offensive production.

“The zone,” Southern star forward Briana Green said, “that’s something we’ve kind of been struggling with all season. I don’t think we did exceptionally well against the zone. I think we can (do) better.”

Alabama State (4-13, 2-4) sat in the compacted zone throughout Saturday, enticing long-distance shots and removing near-the-rim looks, which Southern prefers.

“We weren’t solid against the zone,” coach Sandy Pugh said. “We weren’t getting the ball to the high post. We weren’t very effective. I thought we were standing, very tentative against the zone.”

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