Aaron Johnson – Sports Editor
American International College snapped the No.2 ranked Southern Connecticut State University men’s basketball team’s 13-game home winning streak this past Saturday defeating the Owls 100-91. It was Southern’s first lost this season and first home loss since January 8th.
Senior guard Luke Houston led the way for the Owls with 31 points on 10 of 17 from the field in a losing effort. The Yellow Jackets leading scorer was senior guard Bobby Harris, who finished with 27 points.
“We missed some opportunities but you gotta give AIC a ton of credit,” said head coach Mike Donnelly. “You miss out on a lot of opportunities and that’s just through the course of the game. It’s just going to be a matter of whether teams are going to make us pay or not, to AIC’s credit they did a really good job making us pay.”
Throughout the night, Southern could not get into a rhythm offensively. The Owls shot 45 percent from the field, but just 28 percent from behind the arc. Senior guard Tylon Smith said that the Owls just could not find the stroke against the Yellow Jackets.
“We don’t really gotta change anything. Shots just didn’t fall for us today,” he said. “We just have to play harder and play with more of a focus.”
Smith, who finished with 22 points, seven assists, and six rebounds, also said that a loss like this will give the Owls a little humility going forward.
“It’s a humbling experience,” he said. “We haven’t lost in a while. It’s our first home lost since January of earlier this year and it’s just really humbling. Now it’s just every setback sets up for a major comeback. We’re just gonna be hungrier come next week.”
Southern struggled on defense in the second half as AIC shot 61 percent from the field and 56 percent from behind the three point line. Junior guard Trahmier Burrell poured in a strong game for the Yellow Jackets finishing with 25 points and 11 boards. Houston said that the defense has to be better for the Owls.
“We know that we can score the ball and we play well in stretches we’ve always done that,” he said. “But when we’re playing really well that’s when we’re getting stops on defense so we can run. So we know we’re going to score, it’s just we have to focus on defense and getting those stops.”
The Owls lost the versatile junior Desmond Williams to an injury midway through the second half. Williams had played well for Southern up to that point and finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds on 5 of 10 from the field in 24 minutes.
“I thought he just got hit and got the wind knocked outta him,” Donnelly said. “But I guess something popped on him on his hip flexor. He’s had some trouble with that over the past few weeks. He’s not playing at 100 percent.”
Williams will rest the next few days in order to get back on the court for the Owls.
Southern was averaging 101 points per game coming into the matchup which was best in the NE-10, Donnelly said that AIC deserves a lot of credit for the gameplan that they had coming in that really stifled the Owls offensively.
“They started a different lineup,” he said. “They went with five guards to match us which I thought was a real good move on their end and they were switching everything. We’ve been a team that’s been exploiting ball screens and mismatches and we didn’t really have them offensively. We’re an experienced group, we were just a little inconsistent executing.
