Late in the second half against Tuskegee Tuesday night, head coach Ron Woodard could sense it was “gut check time” for his Claflin men’s basketball team.

Playing a third Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opponent in the last four nights at the Jonas T. Kennedy Center, the Panthers were showing signs of wearing down. A 13-point lead over Tuskegee was now a two-point deficit with 3:25 left in the game.

After two free throws by Claflin’s Anthony Pigrim tied the game at 54-54, a voice from their bench bellowed out words of encouragement phrased in a question.

“Who want’s it more?!”, Woodard said.

Over the final minutes, the Panthers answered in the affirmative by holding the Golden Tigers to just one field goal in pulling out a 65-60 win.

It was the fifth consecutive victory for Claflin (14-8, 13-7), which moved within one-half game of a second-place tie in the loss column in the SIAC standings with Tuskegee and Benedict. Michael Jones came off the bench with 14 of his game-high 18 points in the second half, followed by Eric Salley with 16, Pigram with 13 and Efe Uwadiae-Odigie with 10.

“We were tired,” Woodard said. “We were kind of fatigued a little bit, so we had some extra type of incentive to get them to step up the final 3-4 minutes. So that’s why we went to try to use our timeouts wisely towards the latter part of the game.”

Uwadiae-Odigie opened the game with a follow-up slam dunk and Pigram nailed the first of three, 3-pointers to give Claflin a 5-0 lead. Tuskegee (12-6, 11-6) rallied with six unanswered points for the first of six lead changes and two times.

A 10-2 run in the final minutes gave the Panthers a 29-23 halftime advantage. Uwadiae-Odigie came out strong in the second half, scoring six of the Panthers’ first 10 points to extend their lead to 40-27 near the 15-minute mark.

Tuskegee began to increase its fullcourt pressure, forcing turnovers to Claflin which also struggled to finish basket.

The Golden Tigers outscored the Panthers 21-8 to tie the game at 48-48 with 7:05 remaining. A pair of free throws by Andrea Nelson, who finished with a team-high 17, with 4:37 gave Tuskegee its first lead of the second half at 52-50.

Tuskegee was up 55-54 when Pigram tapped a missed jumper to Sam McAlister for a layup with 1:30 remaining to regain the lead for good by Claflin. On the ensuing possession, Salley stripped the basketball from the Golden Tigers’ Byron Fisher and raced downcourt for the slam dunk with 1:02 left.

Both teams exchanged free throws and Uwadiae-Odigie was fouled after stealing the basketball from Aaron Ragsdale. After hitting 1-2 free throws, Tuskegee’s Lucious Donald lost the rebound out of bounds with 11.2 seconds left.

Jones provided a six-point cushion with 8.4 seconds left with a slam dunk and answered a 3-pointer by Jeremy Williams with two free throws to close out the scoring.

“We found a way to get it done,” Woodard said. “You’ve got to give (Tuskegee) respect. They’re second in the conference. They’re a good team. We just wanted to make sure that they didn’t get more than a two-point lead.”

Claflin will now have five days of recovery time before closing out its home schedule Monday against Stillman College.

 

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