Albany State men fall in home exhibition game

ALBANY — Albany State men’s basketball coach Michael Moore talked throughout the postseason about getting his guards more involved.

The Rams did that in a 76-69 exhibition loss to Thomas University Thursday night at the Albany State HPER Gymnasium.

But Albany State may have forgotten about its defense.

“Yeah, that’s kind of our Achilles heal right now,” Moore said. “Our younger guys are not playing good defense. They haven’t grasped the concept of playing good defense on the college level. They’re still running up and down the court too much.”

It was the second exhibition loss this week for Albany State, which opens its season on Nov. 11 against West Florida in the SIAC-Gulf South Challenge at Fort Valley State. The Rams lost 86-59 at Middle Georgia State Monday night.

Moore said he saw some improvement, but he couldn’t deal with Thomas University taking advantage of second-chance baskets, which the Night Hawks did early and often.

“They didn’t so much hurt us on the first shot,” Moore said. “But I liked the effort, I like the way we ran and I like the character of this team.”

Devontay Ward and Brandon Hudson led the Rams with 15 points apiece, while Khaliq Hughes added 13. Albany State shot 33.9 percent (20 of 59) from the floor.

Moore talked throughout the preseason about feeding the ball inside to the 6-foot-7, 260-pound Ward, who could then kick the ball out to the guards for open jumpers. The Rams did that often Thursday night, but the perimeter shooting didn’t go as planned.

“They are not relaxing,” Moore said. “They need to relax and open up the shots.”

Thomas slowly began to pull away late in the first half, building a 36-27 halftime lead. The Night Hawks led by as many as 12 before the Rams cut the deficit to three on a pair of occasions.

Khaliq Hughes’ two free throws with 3:57 left cut Thomas’ lead to 65-63, but ASU couldn’t draw any closer.

Ward said even though the Rams lost, he saw a lot of promise.

“I think when our young guys begin to understand the speed of the college game, we’re going to be all right,” Ward said. “We had too many missed opportunities on the offensive end. But I thought we played hard tonight.”