HUNTSVILLE – Sam Houston put four players in double figures and was stellar at the foul line in taking down Wyoming, 78-70, on Wednesday night at Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum.  

Veljko Ilic led the Kats (2-2) with 18 points and four rebounds, hitting all eight of his shots from the charity stripe on a night where Sam Houston hit 29 of 33 foul shots to hand the Cowboys (4-1) their first loss of the young season. 

Sam Houston hit 42.9 percent from the field for the game and held the lead for the final 29 minutes of the game, holding off Wyoming despite the Cowboys being down by just three points with 2:33 to play.  

Damon Nicholas Jr. was a key part of that withstanding effort, picking up a double-double with 11 points and a career-high 14 rebounds, reaching that double-double with a breakaway dunk just before the final buzzer to put an exclamation point on the game and cap the night's scoring.  

He was joined in double figures by Isaiah Manning (15) and Po'Boigh King (11) with each of those players coming up big at different points of the game. Manning did the bulk of his work in the first half, hitting a pair of 3-point buckets and scoring 13 of his 15 points in the opening period after beating the halftime buzzer with a putback jumper to send the Kats to the locker room up 37-32.  

King, meanwhile, put in eight of his 11 points in the second half, including hitting a key 3-point bucket with 4:01 left on the clock to put the Kats up 69-63 after Wyoming point guard Leland Walker, who finished with a game-high 24 points, scored seven straight Cowboy points to bring the road team to within three points late in the half.  

UP NEXT 
Sam Houston will look to back up Wednesday's victory with another on Saturday when it hosts Schreiner at Johnson Coliseum. Tipoff is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. with the game to be aired on ESPN+.