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MORROW, Ga. - The Columbus State University men's basketball team closed out the regular season with an 85-78 loss to Clayton State Saturday. The Peach Belt Conference game took place inside The Loch at Clayton State.
Jalen Thomas led all scorers with 21 points on 8-for-14 shooting from the field with
Landrius Horton adding 13 and
Cam Paulding setting a new career high with 12 points.
"Our defense wasn't able to get the stops we needed in critical junctures throughout the game," head coach
Robert Moore said. "We let them gain a little momentum heading into the halftime break and then the deficit in the second half became too much to overcome."
The Cougars kept the game close in the early going with
Chris Horton hitting a three off the bench to give CSU the 11-8 lead just over six minutes into the game. But CSU went scoreless for the next three minutes as the Lakers went on an 11-0 run to go up by eight.
A Horton tip-in though would give the momentum right back to Columbus State as they responded with an 8-0 run of their own to tie the game at 21-apiece. After trading the lead back and forth it was Clayton State who closed the half on a 12-1 run over the final 3:40 to go into the break up by 10.
The Lakers used a strong surge to go up by 24 points at the midway point of the second half. But the Cougars wouldn't go away quietly. Two layups from Paulding with L. Horton hitting a late three got CSU within single digits at the two minute mark.
But the Cougars couldn't get enough stops down the stretch to get any closer than where the final score ended at.
As a team, Columbus State shot 42. percent (31-for-7) and 20.8 percent (5-for-24) from three.
Despite the loss the Cougars were locked into the 8-seed coming into the regular season finale. CSU will travel to Augusta to take on the Jaguars in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, March 5. Tipoff is set for 7:00 p.m.
