A poor shooting night for UTRGV men’s basketball (9-8, 2-4) leads to a 47-65 loss against Tarleton State (9-10, 4-7) Friday night at Bert Ogden Arena in Edinburg.
Early in the game, both the Vaqueros and Texans traded baskets as neither team could break away from each other.
Tied at six, Tarleton State senior forward Jonathan Jackson Jr. covered a layup at the rim to put his team up two.
Two possessions later the Vaqueros regained the lead on a junior guard LaQuan Butler three.
Both teams kept pace with each other as they were tied at 17 midway through the first.
The Texans were able to create separation going on an 8-0 run to lead 25-17.
UTRGV cut the lead to five with a junior guard Uche Dibiamaka three-pointer but the Texans responded by going on a five-minute 9-2 run to increase their lead to 34-22.
At the half, the Texans would lead 36-28 as the Vaqueros shot 34% from the field, 38% from deep, and only made one free throw compared to Tarleton State’s absurd 52%, 50% and 12 free throws.
In a postgame news conference via Zoom, Dibiamaka expressed his disappointment of having open shots but not seeing them fall and how the team changed its game plan headed into the second half.
“Extremely frustrating,” he said. “But you got to go to something else. If your shot is not falling you got to attack the rim and that’s the adjustment that we made.”
Both teams started the second half cold until Dibiamaka drove hard to paint and converted a contested layup to get within eight of Tarleton State.
Dibiamaka would lead UTRGV with 11 points and notched four rebounds.
Despite the Vaqueros best effort to get baskets in the paint, their cold spell would continue as the Texans responded with a 10-2 run to push their lead to 46-32.
Tarleton State would outscore UTRGV 19-15 the rest of the way, holding the Vaqueros to under 50 points for the first time since Dec. 28, 2018 when they fell to No. 11 Texas Tech, 46-71.
Texans freshman forward Freddy Hicks would finish with a career-high 21 points and 11 rebounds for his third double-double of the season and junior guard Montre’ Gipson would finish with 17 points.
UTRGV would finish the game shooting 28% from the field, 26% from deep and 68% from the charity stripe.
Postgame, UTRGV Interim Head Coach Jai Steadman spoke to his team’s current cold streak as the Vaqueros also shot poorly, 36%-23%-55% in their Tuesday 51-68 defeat against New Mexico State University in El Paso.
“Effort was there defensively, again in the 60s,” Steadman said. “Can’t make shots, that’s two games in a row. I can’t complain about defense. We are top-10 in the nation in some categories but 40 or 50 points aren’t going to get it done.”
Vaqueros senior guard Javon Levi, who finished with seven points, seven rebounds, four assists and two steals, shared similar thoughts to Steadman after the game.
“I feel like we got a lot of good shots, a lot of good opportunities, missed a lot of free throws… they’re a good defensive team,” Levi said. “They play tough, real physical but I feel us having [47] points tonight was more on us than it was giving credit to them.”
UTRGV will be closing out the regular season 7 p.m. today at the Fieldhouse against the Tarleton State and Steadman hopes playing on The Sam Williams Court will help the team’s current offensive woes.
“I’ll look at the tape tonight, break it down. I’ll talk to the assistant coaches… we’re in the Fieldhouse, make some shots,” Steadman said. “Got to make some buckets, got to make baskets, got to make shots and we should be okay.”
To listen to the game live, visit utrgvradio.com or download the RadioFX app on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
Twitter: @Radio_Rubio
