TXST MEN’S BASKETBALL
Texas State won their second straight game with a 77-67 victory over the Texas Southern Tigers last Saturday.
The Bobcats improve to 3-2 for the season while Texas Southern falls to 04.
“There’s a couple of different ways you can win,” Head Coach Terrence Johnson said. “One of them is pretty, and one of them is gritty. Certainly, we were the latter. It wasn’t pretty, but these guys stuck together and they got it done.
“It’s going to be like that, especially against a well-coached team and that many athletes. [We] did a really good job today of staying together and getting to the other side of the zeros.”
The Bobcats took the lead early in the game and never trailed en route to the win despite the Tigers late second-half comeback.
It was a bounce-back performance from senior guard Mark Drone. After scoring just three points against UTSA, Drone led the team in scoring with 19 points, shooting 5-10 from the field and 8-10 from the free throw line.
For Drone, not letting his performance against UTSA get the better of him was a key difference in his success against Texas Southern.
“Basically just staying in the gym, not letting just one game determine how the rest of the season will go,” Drone said. “I went back, watched film to see what went wrong, what I could have done better and what I could do today to help us get the win. That’s what I proceeded to do.”
Johnson was proud of Drone for not only stepping up when the team needed him but moving past Wednesday night.
“The credit has to go to the players in their level of maturity,” Johnson said. “For Mark, his ability to flush it, accept it, move on then come back with a better attitude and a better mindset, it’s on him and his level of maturity. We’re all evolving and so is he. He took a step in the right direction with his ability to come back, put together a really good game and not still be stuck on Wednesday.”
It was another outstanding night for freshman forward D.J. Hall. Hall finished the game with a career high 16 points and led the team in rebounds with seven.
With it being the third consecutive game scoring double figures along with having seven or more rebounds, Hall has found and earned his spot with the Bobcats while adjusting to the college game.
“I’m just finding my role in this team,” Hall said. “I know I can’t play on a perimeter as much as I did in high school, so I stay in the paint and just get every loose ball, every rebound and just try to play harder at what I did in high school.”
Johnson praised the freshman’s talent over the last three games and how Hall has the potential to be one of the next great forwards in the program’s recent history.
“He’s a talented guy. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that he’s not,” Johnson said. “He can score all over, either shoulder, right or left hand. He has a package that’s really good in the mid-post, he’s good in the open court and he has a pretty good jump shot.
“I think what happened is he came to the right system. DJ could have gone to a lot of different schools, but he chose to fit. Whether or not you’re talking about Kavin Gil- der-Tilbury, Alex Peacock, Isaiah Small, you can be talking about a lot of different guys that play the four position here that the ball finds them. It’s the best position to play here. He’s done a really good job of understanding that and figuring out where he’s going to get his shots.”
The Bobcats return to play Tuesday night to battle the Abilene Christian Wildcats. This will be the 61st all-time meeting between the former Lone Star Conference rivals with the series dating back to the late 1920s. Abilene Christian won in their last encounter the season before in a 72-60 win defeat for the Bobcats.
Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday at Strahan Arena.
