Nov. 21, 2007
It was a night to forget for the University of Texas-Pan American (3-2) as they got off to a slow start, never recovered from a smothering Texas State full court press, and dropped a 102-75 decision to the Texas State Bobcats at the Field House.
The visiting Southland Conference foe came out with an overly aggressive 1-2-2 press that helped them build a 21-6 lead after Jonathan Sloan connected on a jumper with 13:19 left in the first half.
"We were expecting that press from day one, we worked against it, and obviously I did a poor job of preparing out team. The press hurt us, but really what hurt us was our defense. You can only set your press when you score and we never could stop them," UTPA second-year head coach Tom Schuberth said. "The good thing good about it is we have an opportunity to go up there on January 5th and show them that we're a much better ball club and we can pay them back."
The press bucked the Broncs from gaining any traction off their patented three point-based run and gun offense as they shot 18.2 percent from downtown on 4-of-22 attempts.
For the game, UTPA was held to 34.4 percent on 22-of-64 attempts, compared to Texas State who had six players reach double figures as they dialed up 54.3 percent from the floor on 38-of-70 attempts.
Texas State (4-1) won the battle on the boards, 56 to 28, including 17 offensive boards which led to several second chance opportunities.
Emmanuel Jones (Washington, DC/Riverside City College) hustled his way to 17 points, mostly around the paint and pulled down seven boards as the only big who played solid for the Green and Orange. Brian Burrell (Nacogdoches, TX/Paris J.C.) added another 16 to the tally but shot 1-of-9 from beyond the arc as he was the focus of the Bobcat defense.
Zach Trader (LaPorte, TX/LaPorte H.S.) and Paul Stoll (Lansing, MI/Lansing C.C.) added 11 and 10 points respectively for UTPA.
Texas State was led by Sloan's 20 points, Brent Benson scored 16 and former P-SJ-A hoopster Ty Gough drew most of the Broncs' attention on the low block as he muscled his way to 14 points on his return to the Valley.
"We just didn't play real well, but give them a lot of credit, they played hard and disrupted what we tried to do and we fell behind early and kind of lost our confidence. I did a bad job of preparing the guys tonight; I've got to take the blame. The good thing about it is, tomorrow the sun rises and we've got to come out and prepare for a tough road game at Western Illinois," Schuberth said.
UTPA will returns to action after Thanksgiving break as they will travel to Macomb, Il. for a match-up with Western Illinois. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. CT.
UTPA Sports Information
