Troy wins at home over FIU

TROY — Brandon Hazzard hit a clutch jumper and sank two foul shots in the final 40 seconds to help Troy stop Florida International 69-62 Saturday night on a record-setting night at Trojan Arena.

The Trojans were 18-of-19 from the foul line, which set the school record for free-throw percentage in a game at 94.7 percent. That surpassed the old mark of 92.8 percent when a Troy team made 13-of-14 in a 1977 game.

The Panthers, by contrast, were just 5-for-15 from the foul line.

“Free throws win games,” said Hazzard, who led the Trojans with 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting from the field and 2-for-3 shooting at the foul line.

His biggest basket came in the face of a furious comeback by FIU, which trailed 59-51 with three minutes left. But two long 3-pointers by Michael Dominguez and another three by Nikola Gacesa cut the lead to 63-60 with just over a minute to play.

Point guard Michael Vogler got the ball to Hazzard, who hit a fallaway jumper from 16 feet with 35.2 seconds to play.

“Last year, he was kind of overshadowed by O’Darien Bassett,” Vogler said of Hazzard. “He’s stepped up. It’s kind of his role to make big plays for us.”

“I was confident. My teammates had confidence in me,” Hazzard said.

He didn’t just help on the offensive end. Hazzard moved outside to guard as Troy juggled its lineup in an effort to get more rebounds.

“We were just getting eaten up on the boards,” Troy coach Don Maestri said. “Western Kentucky outscored us 20-2 on second-chance points. We had to do something.”

The Trojans started Antywan Jones at forward, moving Hazzard out front with Vogler and Richard Delk.

“Hazzard got five rebounds tonight,” Maestri said. “We haven’t gotten five rebounds in a game from one of our guards all year.”

FIU had 41 rebounds to Troy’s 40, but the Trojans held their own. Jones led the Trojans with seven rebounds. Seven-foot Tom Jervis scored 10 points and had six boards. Jones, Jervis and Mario Telfair battled with bruising Freddy Asprilla and Nikola Gacesa.

“Mario Telfair had a lot of hustle plays tonight,” Maestri said. “He helped Tom and Antywan on the boards.”

It was a defensive game with contested shots at both ends of the floor. But two big alley-oops got the crowd in the game and gave the Trojans a spark. Vogler found Jones for a dramatic jam that made it a four-point lead with 13 minutes to play. Six minutes later, Hazzard buried a 3-pointer, Troy got a defensive stop and Hazzard lobbed a perfect pass to Jervis, who flushed it through to give Troy an eight-point lead at the 6:33 mark.

Troy improved to 6-9 overall and 2-2 in the Sun Belt. The Panthers dropped to 5-11 and 0-3.

Hazzard’s 16 led the way for Troy. Telfair had 14, Delk 11 and Jervis 10.

Alex Galindo, a Kansas transfer who was coming back from a dislocated ankle injury, scored 14 points in 32 minutes before limping to the dressing room. Asprilla had 13 points, Marlon Bright came off the bench to score 11 and Gacesa had 10 for FIU.

Troy next plays at home Monday night against William Carey at 7 p.m.