JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville State men's basketball team shut down the nation's leading scorer on Tuesday night and handed UNC Asheville a 64-55 defeat in Pete Mathews Coliseum.
 
The Gamecocks (7-4) used a stingy defensive effort in winning their seventh in the last eight games. It was JSU's 10th straight win over non-conference foes at home. It also swept the two-game series with the Bulldogs (4-6), who returned a 2013 game in Asheville that JSU won 71-69 on a tip in at the buzzer.
 
The Bulldogs leading scorer and the co-leading scorer in Division I entering the day, Andrew Rowsey, scored just six points on 1-for-7 shooting. The output was 18 points below his 24.4 points per game average and snapped a streak of 37 consecutive double-digit games for the sophomore. It was just the second time in his career Rowsey has been held in single digits, with the other coming at Duke early in his freshman season.
 
The Gamecocks got 16 points and a career-high eight rebounds from Darion Rackley, the leading scorer in a group of four JSU players in double figures. The St. Louis native, who joined the school's 1,000 Point Club on Sunday, moved into fifth on the school's Division I career scoring list with 1,023 points.
 
Senior D.J. Felder scored 11 points for his second-straight double-digit game off of the JSU bench, while junior Jeremy Watson's 10 points extended his streak of consecutive double-digit games to eight. Junior guard JaQuail Townser also had 10, while dishing five assists and grabbing six boards. Senior Jamal Hunter had nine rebounds, while Watson added six.
 
Senior Avery Moore scored eight but his largest contribution came on the defensive end, where he drew the assignment of shadowing Rowsey for most of the 28 minutes the Bulldogs leading scorer was on the floor.
 
The 55 points are 23 below the Bulldogs' season average and marked the first time this season they have been held under 60 points.
 
A slow starting game saw each team go without a field goal for the first three minutes until Asheville's David Robertson sank a jumper with 16:59 left in the half that gave the Bulldogs a 4-2 lead.
 
Townser answered with a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession, a shot that gave the Gamecocks the lead for good with 16:40 left in the half.
 
JSU stretched its first-half lead to as many as 12 at 26-14 with 7:35 on the clock, but struggles at the line helped Asheville cut its deficit to as few as four and to six at 33-27 at the half. The Gamecocks went just 7-for-17 from the free throw line in the first half but answered in a big way when the game was on the line down the stretch.
 
In a second half that saw Asheville get as close as two in the final three minutes, the free throw line was kind to JSU in the final 20 minutes, when the Gamecocks went 16-for-17 to finish the night 23-for-34 at the charity stripe.
 
After an eight-game stretch in the state of Alabama, including six home games and road games in Huntsville and Montgomery, JSU takes to the road for a five-game swing that will start against Northern Colorado on Saturday in Greeley and will be followed by a Monday contest at Air Force in Colorado Springs.