Joseph Pinion led all players with a career-high 16 points off the bench, helping the Arkansas State men's basketball team to a season-opening 80-75 overtime win over Akron Monday night inside First National Bank Arena.
A-State limited the 2024 MAC Tournament champion Zips to just one field goal in the extra period.
The Red Wolves shot 46.6 percent from the field on 34-of-73, including a 4-for-6 register in OT, and outscored Akron 50-30 in the paint. A crowd of 4,610 – the largest crowd for a home opener since 2002 – cheered the Scarlet and Black to its 10th straight win in a home opener.
Pinion went 5-for-6 on the night, including 4-for-5 from distance in 22 minutes of reserve action. Derrian Ford added 15 points and seven rebounds, while Kobe Julien tallied 14 points. Rashaud Marshall was a force inside with a career-high 10 rebounds and a pair of blocks.
Two other Red Wolves – Taryn Todd and Justin Johnson – accounted for nine points on the night, with Terrance Ford Jr. scoring seven.
The Zips held an early edge, but Johnson book-ended a 9-0 run with five points – including a trey – to put the Scarlet and Black up 21-14 midway through the first half. Akron would bounce right back with an eight-point run to reclaim a 22-21 advantage. Pinion later capped a 12-1 A-State stretch with a three, pushing the Red Wolves ahead by 10 with 2:42 left in the half.
After Akron pulled back within eight on a three by Seth Wilson, Julien sent the teams into intermission with a thunderous dunk, giving A-State a 40-30 lead at the break.
Julien converted a 3-point play early in the second half to match the Red Wolves' largest lead, up 43-32, but the Zips clawed back to even the score at 52 on a layup by Tavari Johnson at the 10:30 mark.
After Akron reclaimed a two-point lead on a basket by leading scorer Sharron Young, Pinion sparked a 10-0 run with back-to-back threes to move A-State back ahead 64-56 with 5:16 to go. Akron tied up the score at 70 on a jumper by Young, but Ford answered with a bucket of his own inside the final minute to make it 72-70. Shammah Scott hit a game-tying jumper with 38 ticks left, making it 72-all.
With less than 10 seconds left in regulation and one second on the shot clock, Ford Jr. converted an inbounds play into a go-ahead three, but the shot was waved off after review, eventually sending the game into overtime.
Todd opened the extra period with a layup, but Nate Johnson answered with a three to put Akron ahead 75-74. That would be the final score of the night for the Zips, as A-State turned up the heat defensively and limited them to just 1-for-7 in the final five minutes to earn the win.
Next up, A-State faces its first road test of the season on Friday, traveling to second-ranked Alabama – a Final Four squad from a season ago. Tip-off against the Crimson Tide inside Coleman Coliseum is slated for 7 p.m. and the game will be carried on SEC Network+.
