JACKSONVILLE – Junior Jeremy Watson recorded his second double-double in the last three games and led the Jacksonville State men's basketball team to a 74-71 win over Savannah State on Friday night.
 
Watson scored a career-high 15 points and grabbed a career-best 14 rebounds to lift the Gamecocks (3-3) to their third straight win and back to the .500 mark for the first time this season. The Tigers (2-4) remain winless on the road.
 
A native of Birmingham, the 6-foot-7 Watson continued his impressive play of late. After notching his first career double-double six days ago against Miles College, he has averaged 12.7 points and 11.3 boards per game over the past three outings. In the win over SSU, he and senior Darion Rackley led four Gamecocks in double figures with 15 points apiece.
 
Watson went 4-for-8 from the floor and 7-for-7 from the free throw line, where he has made 20 of his 23 attempts over the past three games. Rackley ran his career scoring total to 955 points to move past Courtney Bradley into sixth place on JSU's Division I scoring list.
 
The St. Louis, Mo. native now sits 45 shy of joining the 1,000-point club. He would become just the 23rd member of the Jacksonville State club, and just the sixth since the Gamecocks' move up the Division 1 in 1995-96.
 
Senior D.J. Felder went 5-for-6 from the floor and 4-for-5 from the stripe to score a season-best 14 points, while junior JaQuail Townser scored 10 points to go along with his career-high seven assists. Townser also had four steals, one away from Rackley's second-straight game with five steals.
 
The Tigers got most of their offensive production from Terel Hall, who scored 24 and was the only SSU player in double figures. He was 7-for-10 from the field and 9-for-12 from the free throw line, while also dishing seven assists and grabbing four boards in the loss.
 
The Gamecocks started the game on a run that built an early 10-point lead at 18-8, only to watch the Tigers counter with a 15-4 run that gave them their first lead of the game at 23-22. They would extend it to as many as three late in the first half, but an Avery Moore trey at the buzzer sent the game into the half tied at 31-31.
 
The Gamecocks scored the first six points of the second half to build a 37-31 lead and then extended that advantage to 14 by the halfway point of the final frame.
 
The Tigers cut their deficit to as little as three with just under four minutes to play, but the Gamecocks converted on their final 10 free throws and 29 of their 33 attempts on the night to put the game away.
 
Jacksonville State will return to action Sunday when the Gamecocks welcome Fort Valley State to Pete Mathews Coliseum, with the tip-off scheduled for 2 p.m.