By Cody Stark - The Huntsville Item
It wasn't pretty, and at times it was downright ugly, but at the end of the day, a win is a win.
The Bearkats overcame a poor shooting night against a scrappy Saint Thomas squad to hold on for a 54-46 victory Wednesday night at Johnson Coliseum. Sam Houston State shot just 30 percent from the field and 19 percent from behind the arc, but improved to 4-1 on the season.
The Celts (3-7) even led by four with eight minutes to go in the first half, but the Bearkats' athleticism sparked a 15-5 run to give Sam Houston a 25-19 halftime lead, which it never relinquished.
"I don't want to take anything away from Saint Thomas, they are a great team and they are well-coached. They executed and did everything they needed to do to try and win the game," Bearkats head coach Jason Hooten said. "... But the bottom line is tonight that we didn't have the focus, the energy or the effort that we need. It doesn't matter, you can make excuses or whatever, but the bottom line is that it is my job.
"Apparently I didn't have them ready to play enough or focused enough, so I will take the blame for that."
Sam Houston was hot and cold throughout the game. The Bearkats jumped out of the gate to a 10-2 lead as seniors Josten Crow and Gilberto Clavell, who finished with 13 and 16 points, respectively, led the charge.
But as quickly as Sam Houston caught fire, the flame went out. Saint Thomas responded with a 12-0 run which was highlighted by a 3-pointer by Anthony Medina, who finished with 11 points, to put the Celts up 14-10.
The Bearkats, who shot just 29 percent in the first half, finally picked things back up. Sam Houston got some turnovers and junior Marcus Williams, Clavell, Crow, Lance Pevehouse, Drae Murray and Antuan Bootle all scored to give Sam Houston a 25-16 advantage with 1:46 left in the first half.
"We would have liked to have come out and played a little bit better, but we are still a work in progress. We know that," Crow said. "Every night we just try to come out and play hard and play together. For the most part, that is our goal - to play defense and play together. We are going to try and get better."
Medina hit another 3 to send the game into the break with the Celts down 25-19. But again, the Bearkats came out firing as Clavell and Crow helped push the lead to 30-19.
Saint Thomas, though, still wouldn't go away. Jeremy Lewis got a couple of steals and scored eight of his 14 points over the next three minutes to pull the Celts to within 32-27.
The Bearkats didn't help themselves. Sam Houston missed a ton of shots underneath the basket and nothing would fall from outside.
The bigger, stronger Kats scored just 14 points in the paint and only outrebounded Saint Thomas 35-34.
"We are missing a lot of shots in the paint," Clavell said. "I don't know what it is. We are playing hard and making perfect moves, but the ball is just bouncing off the rim."
The Kats answered with a 10-0 run to go up 45-29 when Crow knocked down a 3 and Clavell converted a three-point play.
Melvin Roberts and Patrick Graves drained back-to-back treys with under five minutes to go to make it a eight-point game, but SHSU freshman Byron Randle drilled a 3 to give the Bearkats a cushion down the stretch.
"Again, not to take anything from them, but we kind of inserted a new offense right before we played Texas. We have a few little things we are working with and tinkering with and we felt like this was the best thing to do with our lineup and strength of our lineup," Hooten added. "I have to be honest, that is all we tried to do tonight. We didn't run any set plays or anything like that.
"Part of that is because of our upcoming opponents. I don't want to do too much. ... We just told ourselves coming into this game that we were just going to run our motion. We drew a couple of plays up and scored to start the second half and we probably could have done that. But that is not what I felt like we needed to get better at. We needed to get better at our motion. Obviously, it didn't work very well."
The Bearkats face off with the Houston Cougars at 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 4, in a contest to be televised regionally by the Southland Television Network. Saturday is TDCJ Day at Johnson Coliseum with special ticket prices for Texas Department of Criminal Justice employees.
The official 2010 Southland Conference championship banner raising will highlight the Dec. 8 game with North Texas at 7 p.m. For the third time since 2000, Sam Houston will celebrate a Southland title by unveiling the championship banner in a pregame ceremony.
On Saturday, Dec. 11, it's "Kids Day" at Johnson Coliseum for the 3:30 p.m. tilt with Cleveland State. Students and children 17 years old and younger are free with one paid adult. Up to four kids will be admitted free with each adult.
The Dec. 8 game will be the second of five "Taco Bell Wednesday" games where fans can pick up special 2-for-1 ticket coupons at Taco Bell for the contests.
The best bargain for sports fans, however, is the new "Elite 8" ticket package which offers fans the opportunity to purchase a ticket to seven Saturday night games against NCAA Division I opponents plus the Stephen F. Austin rivalry game on Wednesday, January 26 - all eight games for the remarkable price of only $50. The "Elite 8" ticket package is on sale now online on www.gobearkats.com/tickets .
Fans also may purchase tickets at the Sam Houston athletic ticket office located in the Ron Mafrige Field House at Bowers Stadium. Ticket office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The ticket office telephone is (936) 294-1764.
