Alabama A&M falls in SWAC semifinals

HOUSTON, Texas - Alabama A&M's hopes to return to the SWAC Championship Game for the first time since 2005 were derailed by a cold-shooting, lackluster performance Friday night.

Prairie View A&M, the eighth-seeded team in the SWAC tournament, eliminated A&M 55-49 at the Toyota Center when a furious Bulldogs' last-minute rally came up short. They were within four with 30 seconds remaining before the Panthers made a key block of an A&M layup and sank four of six free throws.

Alabama A&M, ends its season at 14-16, Hayes most wins in one season and having gone through the SWAC regular season at 10-8, shot only 30.2 percent of its shots and went 1-for-15 on 3-point attempts.

"You sit out there launching 3s and they're not going in, you've got to do something else," coach Willie Hayes said on his postgame radio interview with WJAB's Michael Burns. "We just didn't have it tonight for some reason.

"This was a tough one, because I thought we had the talent and the team to get to where we wanted to, but we had some players that just didn't step up," Hayes said.

Jeremy Crutcher scored 13 points to lead the Bulldogs, but was 0-for-7 on 3s. Brandon Ellis added 11, but six of those were among A&M's first eight points. Justan Banks, who finished the regular season with a pair of double-doubles, had only two points and two rebounds.

Tre Hagood led Prairie View with 13 points and eight rebounds.

At 14:59 of the first half, Crutcher hit a layup to give A&M a 10-4 lead. But the Bulldogs would manage only two field goals in the next 11:43 of play, sputtering into halftime at a 33-22 disadvantage.

"We didn't come out of the game with the energy we've been playing with," Hayes said.

They trailed by as many as 15 in the second half before a late comeback that closed the gap to 44-40 just inside the four-minute mark.

"Then," said Hayes, "we turn the ball over and we missed a shot you can't do that in a tournament game."

This was Hayes' second straight year he has led his squad to the conference semifinals since becoming the head coach in 2011.

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