BOX SCORE
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee State men's basketball team fell victim to two free throws from Tennessee Tech's Torrance Rowe with 0.5 seconds left in an 81-79 Ohio Valley Conference road loss at the Eblen Center on Thursday night. Keron DeShields (Baltimore, Md.) scored a career-high 37 points, and Tahjere McCall (Philadelphia, Pa.) secured his first career double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds in the loss.
The Tigers (14-6, 5-2 OVC) held a 43-33 halftime edge, but Tennessee Tech (15-7, 7-2 OVC) outscored TSU by a 48-36 margin in the second half.
"You have to give Tennessee Tech a lot of credit," second-year TSU Head Coach Dana Ford said. "They had a lot of energy in the building. Their kids were very resilient, and we just couldn't hang on. I thought our guys played hard enough to win."
TSU made its first three attempts from beyond the three-point line and held a 14-8 lead six minutes into the game. The Tigers' advantage grew to 13 points at 28-15 on McCall's tip-in with just under nine minutes left in the half.
In the final minute of the half, McCall cleaned up his own miss with 42 seconds to go with an offensive rebound and layup to give the visitors a 43-33 halftime edge.
DeShields shot 4-for-7 from beyond the arc in the first half and had 19 points at the break, while McCall was 6-for-10 from the field for 16 points to go with seven rebounds in the opening 20 minutes.
The Golden Eagles utilized a 10-0 run to trim the TSU lead down to 52-51 with 11:26 left before the Tigers bounced back with a 9-2 stretch of their own to put the advantage back up to 61-53.
Later on, a dunk by TTU's Ryan Martin tied the score up at 67-67, and the Golden Eagles took their first lead of the second half on a three by Aleksa Jugovic to put the score at 70-68 with 3:32 remaining.
With Tennessee Tech up 77-74, Neville Fincher (Teaneck, N.J.) corralled a defensive rebound and DeShields finished a layup with 10.5 seconds left to cut the deficit to 77-76. After a TSU foul, Hakeem Rogers sank two free throws for a 79-76 lead.
On the ensuing TSU possession, DeShields was fouled on a three-point attempt with 5.5 seconds left and calmly sank all three free throws to knot the score at 79-79. Tennessee Tech was able to win the game when Rowe made two of three free throws with 0.5 seconds left after a TSU foul.
TSU held a 40-38 rebounding edge and shot 42.1 percent from the field. The Golden Eagles, led by 23 points from Rogers and 19 from Rowe, finished with 28 points off the bench to TSU's six.
Up next, TSU heads to Jacksonville State for a game on Saturday, Jan. 30, at 4:30 p.m.
GAME NOTES: Tennessee State's record versus Tennessee Tech falls to 30-31… TSU is now 7-5 away from home and 5-5 in true road games… Keron DeShields has now scored in double figures in 19 of TSU's 20 games this season… In his last two games, DeShields has scored 70 points after putting up 33 at Belmont on Jan. 24.
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