JONESBORO -- Noah Freidel scored 19 points and collected 10 rebounds as James Madison survived a late rally to defeat Arkansas State's men 77-73 at First National Bank Arena on Wednesday night.
The Red Wolves were unable to overcome a 16-point second-half deficit. Terrence Edwards Jr. also had 14 points and seven rebounds for the Dukes (21-3, 9-3 Sun Belt Conference).
"We played probably 16 or 17 minutes of good basketball and that's not nearly enough to beat a good team," Arkansas State Coach Bryan Hodgson said. "I thought in the first half we played passive, we didn't play to win. In the second half, we played like we wanted to win, but unfortunately, we put ourselves down 13 coming out [of halftime]."
Arkansas State (10-14, 6-6) made 1 of its first 16 shots and trailed 22-10 after 12 minutes. The Wolves fell behind by as much as 27-14, but back-to-back three-pointers from Derrian Ford and Caleb Fields closed the gap to 27-20 with 4:05 remaining in the first half.
James Madison had a 8-2 run to close the first half for a 35-22 lead. Freidel made 3 three-pointers and had nine points in the first half. Taryn Todd led the Red Wolves with seven points in the first 20 minutes.
"I thought we were extremely bad in the first half in transition defense," Hodgson said. "We didn't shoot it well from three, 9 for 30. Obviously, much better in the second half. I actually thought we got really good looks, I just wish we would have made some."
ASU struggled to close the gap in the second half. The Dukes lead ballooned to 44-28 at the 15:54 mark. From that point, the Red Wolves slowly began to chip away at the deficit and get back into the game.
Back-to-back layups by Izaiyah Nelson trimmed the Dukes lead to 10 at 61-51 with 6:17 left in the game, but that was as close as the Red Wolves would get until the final moments.
Todd made a turnaround jumper to cut the lead to 69-58 with 1:33 left. Freddy Hicks Jr. made a quick steal and Todd knocked down a three-pointer while being fouled with 1:16 remaining to cut the margin to 69-61.
Todd missed the free throw, but the Red Wolves kept fighting. A layup from Ford pulled ASU within 70-65 with 37 seconds left. But a pair of free throws from Edwards pushed James Madison's lead up 72-65.
The Red Wolves would get as close as 73-69 on a layup by Hicks with 17 seconds left. But Freidel's free throws with 12 seconds remaining sealed the win for the Dukes.
Todd led the Red Wolves with 18 points and seven assists. Fields scored 15 points, while Ford and Dominguez finished with 13 and 10 points, respectively.
"A little bit of our old immaturity crept in tonight," Hodgson said. "You can't have any immaturity against a team that good. That is a really good college basketball team. We could have won the game, but we obviously didn't do enough to get it done."
SUN BELT WOMEN
GEORGIA STATE 58, ARKANSAS STATE 56
Arkansas State guard Wynter Rogers missed a pair of free throws with 1 second left that would have tied the game and forced overtime Wednesday night at the GSU Convocation Center in Atlanta.
Mikyla Tolivert scored a team-high 19 points to lead Georgia State (14-8, 8-4 Sun Belt Conference). Deasia Merrill finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds for the Panthers, while Crystal Henderson added 11 points.
Izzy Higginbottom scored a game-high 24 points to pace Arkansas State (12-10, 6-6). Lauryn Pendleton finished with 10 points for the Red Wolves and Rogers added seven points and 14 rebounds.