Men's basketball at San Marcos Wednesday
1/17/2011 8:11:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Sam Houston begins a two-game road swing this week, taking on Texas State at Strahan Coliseum in San Marcos Wednesday at 7 p.m. The contest will be broadcast live on KSAM 101.7 FM and on the internet on www.gobearkats.com .
The Bearkats bring a 9-7 season mark and 2-1 league record into the contest. Texas State stands 6-10 for the year and 1-1 in Southland play. The Bobcats are led by 6-7 Cameron Johnson with 13.4 points per game and 5-10 A. J. Stewart who adds 9.1 points per contest.
The men's basketball series between Sam Houston and Texas State is the oldest in Bearkat history, dating back to 1920. The rivalry is tied 86-86. The pair split last year, SHSU winning in Huntsville 95-64 and the Bobcats taking a 101-97 overtime victory in San Marcos.
Sam Houston rolled up a 14-2 league record on the way to its third Southland Conference regular season title last year. The two losses both came on the road in overtime. The 2011 Kats have avenged the first of those two defeats, knocking off UTSA 62-59 in San Antonio to open this year's league schedule.
Wednesday, Sam Houston returns to San Marcos where the Bobcats handed the Kats a 101-97 overtime loss in the final regular season game of 2010.
Gilberto Clavell scored a career high 35 points and Josten Crow added 21, but it wasn't enough to stop Texas State. John Rybak scored on a free throw with one second left to tie the contest 87-87 at the end of regulation. The Bobcats never trailed in the overtime, going up by six points 96-90 with 54 seconds remaining on free throws by Ryan White. The Bobcats were led by Rybak who scored 25 points.
Sam Houston limited Anatoly Bose to 15 points, eight below his Southland Conference leading scoring average, as the Bearkats defeated Nicholls 74-56 Saturday in Huntsville. Lance Pevehouse led the Bearkats with 13 points. Three other Kats scored in double figures.
Clavell is the Southland's second-leading scorer (18.9 points) and stands fifth in the league in rebounding (7.4). He has scored in double figures in 15 of the Kats' 16 contests this year.
With 865 career points in 49 games since transferring to Sam Houston from Collin Country Community College, Clavell is 135 points away from becoming the first junior college transfer to score 1,000 career points for the Bearkats in two years of action at the NCAA Division I level.
Clavell is averaging 17.7 points per game as a starter for the Kats, totaling double figures in 41 of his 49 appearances. He has earned Southland "Player of the Week" honors twice this year and five times as a Bearkat.
Donald Cole, the Southland "Player of the Year" in 2003, totaled 984 points in his two years as a Bearkat. Corey Allmond, the three-point shooting wonder from last year's championship team, totaled 979 career points.
Clavell and fellow seniors Josten Crow and Lance Pevehouse are the co-captains and leaders of the 2011 Sam Houston squad. Crow is the only four-year player on the team. The 6-4 forward has scored 607 points in 100 career games. Pevehouse is in his third season at SHSU with 578 career points in 78 appearances.
Both Crow and Pevehouse have earned the bachelor's degrees and are now doing post-graduate work.
Clavell was Southland Conference "Newcomer of the Year" and an All-Southland Tournament performer. Crow ranked No. 1 in the Southland and No. 2 nationally in assist/turnover ratio. Pevehouse has provided a consistent perimeter scoring threat for the past three years.
To fill the gap left by the graduation of All-Southland Conference guards Corey Allmond (15.8 points) and Ashton Mitchell (12.4) points and senior forward Preston Brown (9.1 points), Hooten added three junior college transfers. Marcus Williams, a 5-10 guard from Cochise College in Douglas, Ariz. , is Sam Houston's third-leading scorer this year with 8.7 points per game. He averages 4.0 assists.
Nafis Richardson, a 6-2 guard from McLennan Community College, is averaging 6.2 points per game this season. Marcus James, a 6-7 forward Marcus James from Seward County in Kansas owns 4.5 scoring and 5.1 rebounding means. Last season Williams averaged 20.3 points, Richardson 14.4, and James 12.3 in junior college action.
The Texas State contest is the first of two games on the road this year. The Bearkats travel to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Saturday.
The Bearkats return to Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum for a showdown with 2011 Southland Conference favorite Stephen F. Austin on Wednesday, January 26. The 7 p.m. contest marks a rematch of last year's Southland tournament final in which SHSU knocked off SFA to earn an NCAA "March Madness" berth in New Orleans.
The Kat-Jack "Piney Woods" matchup January 26 is The Villas On Sycamore "Spirit Night" with great prizes up for grabs by students who compete in a contest to show their Bearkat spirit.
Prizes include a Sony Bloggie video recorder, a Coolpix S4000 touch screen digital camera and an IPAD. The first place contestant will take a half court shot for an even bigger prize during a timeout in the second half.
Tickets for all Sam Houston home athletic events are on sell now online at www.gobearkats.com/tickets or at the SHSU athletic ticket office 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) 294-1729.
