KENT, Ohio --- The Samford University basketball team suffered its third-straight loss by three points or less Sunday as the Bulldogs were defeated 55-52 by the UAB Blazers in the first game between the cross-town rivals in over 26 years. Samford’s Trey Montgomery attempted a last-second 3-pointer that fell short at the buzzer.
Montgomery, the Bulldogs’ 6-foot-4 senior from Destrehan, La., finished the contest with a team-high 17 points and was named to the All-Tournament Team of the 2009 Hispanic College Fund Classic.
Samford (0-3) jumped out to an early lead in Sunday’s game and held a 30-22 advantage at halftime. The Bulldogs were buoyed in the first half by 10 points apiece from Montgomery and fellow senior Bryan Friday, while shooting 52 percent from the field as a team.
In the second half, Samford, which played its third game in three days, seemingly ran out of gas and connected on only 23.8 percent of its field-goal attempts. The Bulldogs finished the game with season-lows in both 3-point field goals made (4) and 3-point field-goal percentage (15.4). Samford went 0-for-12 from beyond the arc in the second half of play.
“We were tired and I think our guys were worn out,” said Samford head coach Jimmy Tillette. “We played the second game Friday night and yesterday we played the first game, and then today we played the early game again, so we had less recovery time. We were also worn short in our rotation because Josh Bedwell injured his leg and couldn’t play for most of the second half.
“It was fatigue and I also have to give a lot of credit to UAB. They played hard the whole game and we also played hard the whole game. It was a great matchup and it came down to the wire.”
Sunday’s contest marked Samford’s third-straight game to be decided on the final possession. On Friday, the Bulldogs were defeated by the hometown-favorite Kent State Golden Flashes, 69-66, before dropping a 70-68 decision to Green Bay on Saturday.
Against both UAB (2-1) and Green Bay, Samford had the ball on the final possession with a chance to tie the game.
In Sunday’s cross-town matchup between Samford and UAB, which was played 1,000 miles away in Kent, Ohio, the Bulldogs took a timeout with nine seconds left on the clock trailing 65-62. After the inbounds play, Samford worked the ball quickly to Andy King in the right corner. King went up for the game-tying 3-pointer, but the ball fell short and was caught by UAB’s Jamarr Sanders, who was quickly fouled.
“We were trying to find Josh Davis in the corner for a 3-pointer,” Tillette said. “We wanted to have Trey dribble down the baseline and then have Bryan Friday set a screen for Josh, but we couldn’t quite get there at that point. In the end, I thought Andy was able to get a good look and it seemed as if he was hit in the arm on his shot, but there was no call.”
With 5.4 seconds remaining in the game and UAB leading 55-52, the Blazers’ Sanders stepped to the free-throw line to take two shots.
Sanders missed both attempts and his final shot caromed off the rim directly to Samford’s Montgomery. Montgomery quickly dribbled down the left side of the court and crossed the center line with two seconds remaining on the clock. The Bulldogs’ point guard then pulled up from 30 feet to send the game into overtime, but the shot fell short.
Samford only scored 22 points in the second half, 12 of which came from the free-throw line. The Bulldogs finished 12-of-14 from the charity stripe for an 85.7 percentage.
UAB only shot 50 percent (9-of-18) from the line, but finished with a 40-percent clip from 3-point range. The Blazers knocked down 8-of-20 of their shots from downtown, including an MVP performance from Dexter Fields. UAB’s freshman guard knocked down four key 3-pointers and provided the final lead-changing basket with 2:17 left to play.
Fields help pace the Blazers with 12 points, all of which came from behind the arc. UAB also received 12 points from Howard Crawford, while Elijah Millsap added 10. Millsap was also named to the All-Tournament Team of the 2009 Hispanic College Funds Classic.
Both Samford and UAB finished with nine turnovers, while the Blazers won the battle of the boards by only one rebound, 31-30.
“We only had nine turnovers and I thought that our execution was actually pretty good against their pressure,” said Tillette. “We had some great looks around the basket that didn’t go down and we had a great shot from Josh Davis in the corner where the ball came out of his hand flat. That means that he didn’t have any legs and that he was just tired. We used a lot of energy to defend them and we were short in our rotation, so those were both big factors down the stretch.”
After Montgomery’s 17 points, seven rebounds, five assists and a steal, Bryan Friday followed with 13 points, four rebounds and three steals. Sophomore Jeffrey Merritt turned in his best game of the season Sunday. The Bulldogs’ guard from Oklahoma City, Okla., was a perfect 4-for-4 from the field and finished with 10 points and six rebounds.
Rounding out the scoring for Samford were King with seven points, John Peterson with three points and Davis with two.
The Bulldogs finished the 2009 Hispanic College Fund Classic with an 0-3 record, but were only outscored by a total of eight points in three games.
“Hopefully for us, these will be three days and three tough losses that we can all learn from,” Tillette said. “There’s always going to be a significant learning curve throughout the season and we just need to build upon each game until we get to February. It’s those games that count and we have to continue to get better every day.”
The Samford University basketball team will next be in action Friday at 7 p.m., as the Bulldogs travel to College Station, Texas, for non-conference matchup against the Texas A&M Aggies. Samford’s fourth-straight road game to start the 2009-10 season will be held at Texas A&M’s Reed Arena (12,292).
