Sam Houston (7-5) never trailed, leading 43-21 at intermission and eventually winning by 41 points. Brandon Gould led Howard Payne (3-8) with 10 points.

Bearkat head coach Jason Hooten is pleased to be going into Southland Conference play next week against A&M-Corpus Christi with a 7-5 mark.

"I know a lot of people are going to look at these last two games and who we've played," Hooten said. "But don't forget we started out the season playing Arkansas, Indiana and Texas. We didn't run away from anybody. We played a great schedule early and we won two out of three road games in the month of December."

Terrance Motley scored 15 points Saturday while Darius Gatson added 13, Will Bond 11 and DeMarcus Gatlin 10. Michael Holyfield, SHSU's 6-11 center, led both teams with seven rebounds.

The Bearkats outscored the Yellow Jackets 46-14 in the paint and totaled 31 points off HPU's 23 turnovers.

Sam Houston opens Southland Conference play Friday at 3:30 p.m. at Johnson Coliseum, hosting Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

"With our schedule, as we put it together, we had to do what he had to do with some of those games," Hooten said. "We've worked to get better every game and we've won some games that will give us some momentum and confidence going into conference play."

Sam Houston jumped out to an early 20-6 lead after a fast break dunk by Motley eight minutes into the game.

Baxter did not play in the first half, but found a rhythm in the final 20 minutes. Gatson added five rebounds and passed out five assists.

"Depth is definitely a strength of our team," Hooten said. "As a staff, we talked about adding more depth so we could play hard as we've always played and then at the end of the game have some fresh guys. The good thing about this team is that it's a different guy every night or a group of different players every night."