BOX SCORE

JACKSONVILLE – Jeremy Bynum brightened a sluggish second half on Thursday night, when his 3-pointer that fell with six seconds to play erased a two-point deficit and lifted the Jacksonville State basketball team to a 58-55 win over Southeast Missouri at Pete Mathews Coliseum.

With the Gamecocks (9-11, 5-5 Ohio Valley Conference) trailing 55-53, Bynum, a junior guard from Oxford, Ala., caught a Dominique Shellman pass just right of the top of the key and found nothing but net with 6.5 ticks left on the clock. A Redhawks (6-14, 3-7 OVC) turnover sent junior Nick Murphy to the free throw line to put the game away.

Bynum's triple, his second of the night and the Gamecocks' first of the second half, negated a second half that saw JSU shoot just 25 percent from the floor and 27 percent from behind the arc. The Redhawks struggled down the stretch as well, shooting just 33 percent from the floor and 17 percent from 3-point land in the final 20 minutes, but it was their late miscues that allowed the Gamecocks to escape with their third win in their last four games.

Bynum finished the game with 12 points and was part of a trio of junior Gamecocks in double figures. Trenton Marshall led JSU with 14 points, 11 of which came in the first half, while Murphy finished with 11. Murphy, a Bronx, N.Y., native, ran his career scoring total to 904 points, making him just the fourth Gamecock to score 900 points in a career since JSU moved to Division I.

A game that saw 11 ties and nine lead changes was almost as balanced as one could be. The Gamecocks shot 33 percent to the Redhawks' 34, while a 27 percent effort from JSU from behind the arc was just better than SEMO's 25. The Redhawks turned it over 15 times to Jax State's 14 and won the battle on the glass by just one, 39-38. Both teams made 18 field goals, but the Gamecocks had one more 3-pointer than SEMO that proved to be the difference maker.

Marshall led the Gamecocks on the glass with eight boards, while senior Amadou Mbodji snagged eight rebounds to go with his six points and two blocks. Sophomore Stephen Hall added seven boards and seven points for JSU. Sophomore Dominique Shellman dished nine assists in the win, giving him at least seven in each of his last four games.

SEMO's Jajuan Maxwell came off of the bench to get his first double-double of the year, a 13-point, 11-rebounds night that paced three Redhawks in double figures in the scoring column. Derek Thompson scored 15 of his 18 points in the first half, while Sam Pearson finished the night with 13 points.

An early SEMO spurt gave the Redhawks an early lead, one they stretched to as many as eight at 16-8 with 14:30 to play in the first half. The two exchanged runs over the next 10 minutes before a 12-4 Gamecock run gave them an eight-point lead at 33-25 with just under three minutes before the half, when they took a 35-30 advantage into the locker room.

The Gamecocks were cold for much of the second half, connecting on just one of their first 11 field goal attempts. The drought allowed SEMO to inch out to a 42-39 lead with 12 minutes to play. A Thompson trey with 8:44 to play, SEMO's lone make from behind the arc in the second half, gave them 49-45 advantage.

Bynum cut the deficit to two with a jumper with 5:26 remaining, and the game's next field goal didn't come until a Pearson jumper with 3:04 on the clock gave the Redhawks a 53-49 lead. A Hall slam around the two-minute mark cut the deficit to two and a pasir of Shellman free throws tied it at 53-53 with 1:23 remaining.

Pearson dribbled to his left from the top of the key and drove the lane for an uncontested layup with 23 seconds to play, setting the stage for Bynum's game winner, one that almost didn't have a chance to fall.

A Shellman pass attempt almost rolled out of bounds, only to be saved by Bynum into the hands of SEMO's Marland Smith, who couldn't corral what looked to be an easy fast break with 12 seconds to play. Bynum went in motion off of the inbounds pass and Shellman eventually found him near the left wing for his game winner, JSU's first in the final 10 seconds since a Jonathan Toles runner sank UMass in November of last season.

SEMO had six seconds on the clock but Murphy swiped a Smith pass with two seconds remaining, forcing Pearson to foul and send him to the line for the clinching free throws.

The Gamecocks will close a four-game homestand on Saturday with a crucial game against Eastern Illinois. Thursday's action created a logjam in the middle of the league standings, with EIU a half game out of a fifth-place tie between the Gamecocks and Tennessee Tech. Saturday's game starts at 4:30 p.m. at Pete Mathews Coliseum, the Gamecocks' final home game before taking to the road for three games in a five-day span next week.