MURFREESBORO, Tenn.?Sun Belt newcomer Troy made up for a dismal performance in Jonesboro a month earlier by blistering Arkansas State in the opening round of the Sun Belt Conference Championship on Saturday, connecting on an NCAA season-high 23 3-pointers en route to a stunning 107-83 win over the Indians.
ASU (12-18) was helpless against the barrage of 3-pointers that the Trojans (14-14) unleashed in the game. ASU head coach Dickey Nutt was nearly speechless after the game.
“Wow. That's all you can say when you see an entire team that hot hitting from all over the floor,” said Nutt. “I've been coaching a long time and have never seen anything like that. We knew they were capable of putting up some really good numbers, but we never thought something like this would possible.”
The Trojans were paced by Cedric Jackson's 28 points on 11-of-13 shooting from the floor. Boo Ramsey added 26 points off the bench as the pair combined for 19-of-22 from the floor and 13-of-16 from 3-point range. Jacob Hazouri scored 14, Bobby Dixon added 13 points and 14 assists and Sammy Sharp added 11 for the Trojans.
ASU was paced by a career-high 27 from Isaac Wells while Brandon Ballard had his best game in months by scoring 16 points. Jim Jones and Marcus Ardison added 12 each while Dereke Tipler scored 10 and had seven assists.
The game got out of hand in a hurry for the Indians. ASU trailed by eight just 2:35 into the contest at 12-4 and fell behind by double figures 6:02 into the first half. A 3-pointer by Hazouri at the 12:22 mark put Troy up 12 at 26-14, and the lead wouldn't fall below double figures the rest of the night.
“I really thought that we could weather the first few minutes of them being hot from the field as long as we continued to play hard,” said Nutt. “But they never really cooled off. After the first half-dozen shots fell for them, you could see it in their eyes that the entire team was energized. We just couldn't stop them.”
Troy would score 45 points just on three's in the first half as they posted 66 points by halftime while hitting 68.2 percent from deep in the opening half. ASU scored a respectable 37 points and still trailed by 29.
The Indians never could get the game close in the second half as Troy continued to hoist three's up until the last seconds of the game. The Indians managed to slice the deficit down to 23 on a handful of occasions but never could get any closer.
It was truly a record-breaking night for the Trojans as they obliterated the SBC Tournament single-game record for three's. In fact, the Trojans tied the game record of 15 by halftime. The 23 made 3-pointers is also a new opponent record against the Indians and the 107 points allowed ties for the eighth-most ever given up in ASU history and the most since 1975-76.
The loss overshadowed some strong performances for the Indians. Wells ended the season by averaging 21.4 points and 9.5 rebounds per game over the final four contests. Ballard's 16 points are the most since scoring 19 against Louisville in December while his five three's on the night gave him 30 for the year, giving the Indians four players with at least 30 3-pointers on the season for the first time ever.
