Texas State rallies, upsets first-place Little Rock

Texas State had to rely on its freshmen to defeat Arkansas State on Thursday. But on Saturday, the Bobcats turned to their veterans.

Prior to its matchup with Little Rock, the team announced that sophomore forward Jayla Johnson and freshmen posts Da’Nasia Hood and Jaeda Reed were suspended from the game due to violating team rules. All three posted double-digit minutes in Thursday’s contest, leaving the maroon and gold with a short bench and a dearth of bigs against the Sun Belt’s No. 1 school.

Head coach Zenarae Antoine tried a new approach, swapping out one of the two bigs usually featured in Texas State’s lineups for an additional guard. The adjustment worked, as the Bobcats upset the Trojans, 50-48, inside Strahan Arena in the Play4Kay Breast Cancer Awareness game.

“(This win means) that they’ve turned the corner,” Antoine said. “For it to come together with a sweep of the Arkansas (teams), it’s just awesome. And the credit is to the players and their belief from the very beginning, regardless of what some naysayers may have said. They found a way to get it done. And we’re just here to celebrate.”

Defense is Little Rock’s calling card, only allowing 57.5 points per game, best in the conference. Donning pink jerseys, the hosts did their best to match the visitors’ intensity, and trailed 9-5 after the first quarter.

Antoine knew she needed more scoring punch on the offensive side. At the 8:48 mark in the second quarter, junior guard Brooke Holle subbed in for senior forward Zandra Emanuel. The rest of the lineup was made up by freshman guard Kennedy Taylor, junior guard Bailey Holle, senior guard Toshua Leavitt and junior forward Jazza Johns.

Texas State trailed by three points when it went to the lineup. When Emanuel returned 1:48 later, the Bobcats only trailed by two. Antoine liked what she saw and went back to the lineup later in the quarter.

“I can tell you that we were really excited about it because I knew we were going to be faster,” Antoine said. “And I’ll tell you, one of my frustrations that I have with our (2-3) zone (defense) is that we don’t move fast enough … And so I was like, ‘Man, this is going to be different. (Little Rock) is not going to expect it and we’re going to be so quick. They’re not going to get that initial look that they’re used to. They’re gonna have to move the ball.’ And our players bought into it.”

The hosts went to the same group with two minutes left in the half, down 24-20. A 3-pointer from Bailey, a stop on defense and a layup from Brooke pushed Texas State back in front just before the end of the quarter.

“I’ve never played the forward before, so all of the forwards were really helping me out, telling me what to do, where to go,” Bailey said. “Same with the coaches, they were really helping me out and made it really easy for me to kind of play that position that I’ve never played before.”

Antoine went small a lot more in the second half, switching out Johns and Emanuel at the center spot. The Bobcats’ extended their lead to 38-34 entering the fourth quarter.

But the Trojans wouldn’t go away. Little Rock began the final period on a 14-5 run, going ahead 48-43. Brooke drained a triple from the right wing to cut into the deficit, and Antoine decided to end the small-ball experiment on the next possession, taking out Bailey and slotting Emanuel in next to Johns.

The extra big helped the hosts protect the paint. The visitors missed their final five shots of the game. Johns dropped in a layup and free throws from Brooke and Toshua sealed the team’s fate. Texas State completed the rally, winning 50-48.

“We just gotta go out there and compete and give effort and everyone gotta play hard,” Leavitt said. “It’s not so much like, you gotta have such a perfect offense or something. It’s just like, you have to compete whenever you play against the best teams. And everyone, today, came out ready to play.”

Bailey lead the Bobcats with 13 points, followed by Brooke and Leavitt with 11 each. Brooke and Emanuel both racked up a team-high seven rebounds.

Texas State (11-14, 6-7 Sun Belt) will head out to play Louisiana-Monroe (8-15, 2-10) on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. for the first leg of the team’s final road trip. The Bobcats’ final away game will be against Louisiana (7-17, 5-8) on Saturday at 2 p.m.

Antoine said she wasn’t sure how much small-ball she would use in the future, but was confident she would be able to find the right balance down the line.

“I’m taking it game by game,” Antoine said. “I’m letting these young women enjoy this. We need to enjoy it, our fans need to enjoy it, all of our survivors need to enjoy this game, as well.”