The Prairie View A&M Panthers (4-18, 4-9) returned home after playing two conference games on the road against Grambling State and Jackson State, both losses. The Panthers hoped to return home and put together a great game against Mississippi Valley State to get their confidence back. Played in the Williams J. Nicks building in front of a sparse crowd of 639, PVAMU fell behind 4-0 on jumpers from MVSU’s Jeffrey Price and Hosea Butler. PV’s Oscar Thompson drained a deep three-pointer to put the Panthers on the board.
The Panthers’ first three field goals were three pointers from Thompson and senior guard Phillip Scott. Prairie View took their first lead of the game at the 9:32 mark of the first half on a free throw from Thompson, putting the game at 20-19, in favor of the home team.
With Prairie View leading 26-23 and 5:54 remaining in the first half, MVSU went on a 13-0 scoring to put them comfortably ahead, 39-26. The first half ended with the Panthers trailing 39-28.
In the second half, the Panthers started sluggishly and fell behind by 13 points with 17:56 left in the game, after a free throw was hit by MVSU’s Stanford Speech.
Head Coach Jerome Francis fired up his troops and told them to get aggressive and aggressive is what they got. The Panthers went on a 9-0 run led by Marcus Thomas and Oscar Thompson to bring the Panthers within one point, 47-46 with 14:28 remaining. Unfortunately, that was as close as PV would get. The Delta Devils got seven of those points back and eventually pushed their lead up to 15 on a jumper from Butler. Prairie View fell short in this contest, 75-60.
Offensively, the Panthers were led by Oscar Thompson’s 20 points and Phillip Scott chipped in with 15 points. For the game, the Panthers shot 46.8% from the field on 22-47 shooting.
The men and women’s team play next week against Alabama State, in Montgomery, Ala.
Their next home game will be against Alcorn St. on March 3, which is two games before the SWAC tournament begins.