Off the bench, junior guard LaQuan Butler scores a career-high, 20 points, to lead UTRGV men’s basketball (6-3) to a 96-67 victory over St. Mary’s (2-1) Thursday night at the UTRGV Fieldhouse.
UTRGV in the first half quickly took control of the game by jumping out to a double-digit lead, 22-11. Coming out from halftime, UTRGV led 44-28 and in the first two minutes of the second half increased their lead to 20.
St. Mary’s answered back with a 12-2 run to cut the lead to 12, aided by a pair of three-pointers from sophomore forward Tyler Caron and junior forward Mamady Djikine as both ended with 18 and 10 points, respectfully.
The Vaqueros then promptly responded with a 33-10 run, where nine different players found the basket, to extend their lead to a game-high 35 points in route to scoring a season-high 96 points.
Butler shot 8-11 from the field and 4-6 from deep to go along with four rebounds and two assists. During the postgame interview via Zoom, he said his success came after a productive week in practice and playing within the system.
“I was just taking the shots that came to me, I wasn’t trying to force anything, let my teammates set me up,” Butler said. “We’ve been working on that all week in practice with me and the coaches, me and [assistant coach Kenya Crandell] specifically, taking more attempted shots.”
After the game, Head Coach Lew Hill said he was proud of the team’s offensive performance after an extended break but still sees room for improvement with WAC conference play around the corner.
“We did a wonderful job, like I said, I thought we played a really good game all-around, [the] only thing – we coaches, right, I nitpick – one thing that I didn’t like we just sent them to the free-throw line,” Hill said. “I like the way we shared the ball; I liked the way we rebounded, the way we shot it and played a really good game.”
The Vaqueros committed 27 personal fouls and sent the Rattlers to the line 32 times where they shot 68% for the game converting 22.
Graduate transfer forward Jeff Otchere made his debut for UTRGV coming back from an injury, the 2018-19 America East Defensive Player of the Year, scored seven points, corralled five boards and blocked four shots in 12 minutes.
The Vaqueros’ next opponent will be a doubleheader against new WAC member Dixie State (4-2) at 6 p.m. on Jan 15. and 16 at the UTRGV Fieldhouse to start conference play.
For more updates and highlights, visit GoUTRGV.com.
For Vaquero Radio, I’m Luis Rubio.
