BOWIE, Md. – The Bowie State University men’s basketball team earned a hard fought 84-83 win over the defending CIAA Champions of Livingstone College on Thursday evening. The win moves the Bulldogs to 9-4 (1-0 CIAA) on the season while the Blue Bears fall to 6-4 (0-1 CIAA) on the year in the setback. The BSU victory was also the 100th career win for head coach Darrell Brooks.
Senior Cameron Knox (Baltimore, Md.) led all players with a career-high 31 points, tied his career-high assists mark with four and knocked down all 11 of his free throws. Junior Andre Jackson (Baltimore, Md.) added 17 points and a team-high seven rebounds off the Bulldogs bench.
The Blue Bears were led by Eric Dubose (Brooklyn, N.Y.) with 22 points followed by Eric Mayo (Shelby, N.C.) with 18 points. Mayo hauled down a team-high 13 rebounds to go along with four of the Blue Bears’ seven blocked shots. Dwight Williams (Jacksonville, Fla.) was responsible for nine rebounds. Ty Newman (Easton, Md.) along with Robert Flint contributed 15 and 10 points respectively for Livingstone.
Livingstone took a 40-35 lead into halftime on 16-of-31 (51.6 percent) shooting from the field and held a 26-14 advantage on the glass during the first 20 minutes of action.
The first half featured four ties and four lead changes as Livingstone led by seven (40-33) at the 1:58 mark and Bowie State held an eight point advantage (29-21) at the 6:26 mark.
Livingstone maintained a lead the majority of the second half until the second of two free throws by BSU’s Andre Jackson gave the Bulldogs their first lead at 57-56 with 8:25 left in the game. A Newman layup at the 5:13 mark shifted the advantage back over to Livingstone at 63-62, but that’s the last time the visitors would hold a lead.
Thirty seconds later, a pair of free throws by Bowie State’s Knox shifted the advantage back over to the Bulldogs for good. The Bulldogs led by seven twice in the final 2:39 but Livingstone was not ready to throw in the towel.
Bowie State’s defense caused 21 total Livingstone turnovers which resulted in 26 Bulldogs points but the Blue Bears were able to hold a 44-32 rebound advantage.
“The 100th win is significant but even more significant was our team being 1-0 (in the conference) … That’s where we wanted to be after tonight”, said sixth year head coach Darrell Brooks. “This league is tough and you have to win games at home and you have to do well in cross division games.”
The Bulldogs return to the home hardwood on Saturday (January 3) afternoon, hosting the Johnson C. Smith Golden Bulls in a 4 pm conference clash.
