Bobcats Leave Twenty Points At Charity Stripe, Lose By Four

The Texas State men’s basketball team went into Saturday’s game against UT-Arlington on a two game conference win streak and were pretty confident they could make it three. However, when you finish the game shooting 26-46 from the free-throw line, those hopes can vanish rather quickly. The Bobcats continually shot themselves in the foot with every missed free-throw shot and ended up falling to the Mavericks 82-78 in San Marcos.

The 'Cats were, and still are, sitting in 3rd place in the Western division of the Southland conference going into the game, and UTA was last. However, that just fueled the Mavericks to play their hearts out. Texas State had won the previous three meetings between the two teams, including their contest three weeks ago in Arlington. The Bobcats’ frontcourt play has improved drastically since then and their assist-turnover ratio has tightened up a bit as well. So, the majority of spectators would have probably said that Texas State was the favorite coming into this game.

The first half of play was pretty much dead even between the teams as the score was tied at 37 going into halftime. Both teams had nine turnovers apiece and both teams missed a total of eight free-throws. The biggest advantage Texas State had was their +9 mark in the rebounding column. The Bobcats also held the Mavericks' star guard Marquez Haynes to 5 points and 3 turnovers. However, everyone who follows Southland Conference basketball knew that it would be just a matter of time before he would pick it up, and that is exactly what he did.

Haynes turned those 5 points into 21 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists as he lead his team to a 2nd half surge. A game that saw a total of 17 ties by the 7-minute mark, eventually came down to who could take care of the orange ball and who could knock down their free-throws. Texas State did one out of two of those criteria, but it wasn’t enough. The ‘Cats finished with 17 turnovers compared to UTA’s 21, but the ‘cats also missed 20 free-throws compared to UTA’s 13. There was an intentional foul called at the 1:45 mark that was quite questionable with the Bobcats only down 5 that sort of swung momentum, but if the Bobcats would have knocked down their shots from the charity stripe then we would not be having this conversation. The loss was nothing short of heartbreaking, but because they are in conference play they must move on. Southeastern Louisiana hosts the Bobcats on Wednesday, and they likely remember their loss in Strahan last year where both teams got into a bench-clearing brawl.

Cameron Johnson had his third straight double-double as he finished with 21 points and 11 rebounds. Bidias A’ Moute had his third double-double in three games s he finished with 10 points and 12 rebounds. Ryan White, although he shot an un-characteristic 0-7 from deep, had one of the most productive games of his career as he finished with 14 points, 10 assists, and 5 rebounds.

Texas State falls to 10-11, 4-3 SLC with the loss and split this year's regular season series with the Mavericks. The Bobcats will take one of its longest road trips in conference play to Hammond, Louisiana for Wednesday night's tipoff at Southeastern Louisiana. Tip off is at 7 P.M. and KTSW will have coverage starting at 6:30 on 89.9 and ktsw.net.

-Robert Fisher, KTSW Sports Staff Writer