Photo of UMHB’s Josiah Johnson, who had 20 points against TAMUK, by Luke Zayas/True To The Cru
KINGSVILLE, Texas–Moral victories may not exist, but the UMHB men’s basketball team certainly left the Gil E. Steinke Physical Education Center on the campus of Texas A&M-Kingsville with plenty of pride in its performance.
Though the Crusaders dropped an exhibition matchup at Division II TAMUK, 82-74, on New Year’s Eve, they walked away having exuded a notable level of energy and cohesiveness coming out of an 11-day holiday break.
“After that extended break for Christmas, we wanted to get our legs back going,” UMHB head coach Clif Carroll said postgame. “We played with a lot of energy, a lot of team effort, and togetherness. It was refreshing to see.
“We led for the majority of the game. Kingsville hit a couple shots there at the end, and got a couple offensive rebounds that put us away. We played everybody that was suited up today and everybody contributed well. So, really happy with the effort.”
With four seconds left in regulation, TAMUK’s C.J. Smith swished a pair of free throws, putting the Javelinas in the lead, 68-65. With one final offensive possession and needing a 3-pointer for the tie, the ball found its way into Zachary Engels’ hands off a pass from Eli Beard. Engels let the ball go as the final buzzer sounded, and connected on a 3-pointer, sending the game into overtime knotted at 68 apiece.
TAMUK pulled away in overtime, however, and outscored UMHB 14-6 in the five-minute span. A UMHB scoring drought of nearly three minutes late in overtime gave way to the Javelinas 7-0 run, effectively closing out TAMUK’s first victory since Nov. 22. The result will not count towards either team’s record, however, as it was an exhibition matchup.
Josiah Johnson led UMHB’s offensive effort with a game-high 20 points. Beard added 13 points, and Engels contributed with 11. Kyle Wright dished out a team-best five assists, and everyone on UMHB’s bench saw game action, one of the benefits of the contest being an exhibition.
But in the midst of the back-and-forth duel, the competitiveness was at the level of a pivotal conference matchup.
“If we play with the energy we played with today, we’ll be fine,” Carroll added. “We still feel like we’re one of the best teams in the country. We had a bad stretch of games that put us behind on a lot of our goals but we still think that we’re a team that can contend on a national level. We just have to play with that type of energy and effort every game.”
UMHB opened the New Year’s Eve tilt with a 10-4 scoring run, taking charge within the first five minutes. It took two minutes, 31 seconds, for The Cru to get on the scoreboard, but once Johnson’s turnaround jumper fell through the net, UMHB’s offensive rhythm followed. Eli Beard connected on a 3-pointer, Johnson converted on another jumper, and the defense came up with multiple stops.
The Javelinas answered, and took a 14-12 lead by the 10:08 mark of the first half on a Zyon Little 3-pointer. Little was a difficult matchup throughout the day, and finished with 12 points.
But as it turned out, TAMUK trailed for the remainder of the opening half. An 11-2 spurt saw Engels score on a layup for a seven-point lead with 6:19 left, and while Little cut the deficit to 25-23 with 2:09 on the clock, Kyle Wright converted on a 3-pointer, leading to UMHB’s 31-25 halftime lead.
Each team held narrow leads at various points through the second half, as the margin never widened beyond six points. UMHB’s 47-41 advantage with 11:32 left was the largest second-half lead for either side, but TAMUK erased it in a three-minute span, and tied the score at 49. The lead changed hands five times in the final five minutes,
With 11 seconds left, Marcus Green-Jones put TAMUK up, 66-62, in a shot that appeared to seal the Javelinas victory. But Johnson came through in clutch fashion with a 3-pointer, cutting the deficit to 66-65 with four seconds remaining. That set up Engels’ game-tying, long-range shot, and the overtime that followed.
“We practice end-of-game, and end-of-possession stuff a lot, but we hadn’t done it since we’d been back from Christmas,” Carroll said. “It was good to see the guys execute and do what we needed to do to put ourselves in position to win the game again.”
The month of December opened with UMHB’s fourth-straight loss in its ASC opener at Concordia. But the tide has turned, it seems, from where The Cru was 30 days ago. As 2024 approaches, UMHB is playing more on the same page, and it is showing up frequently in both game and practice settings.
“I feel like, in the locker room, we have a much better synergy,” Carroll said. “I think this is going to be a more tightly-connected team and a team that is going to play for each other a little better than what we have. Hopefully, we figured some things out and can get going into this conference stretch and get on a roll.”
UMHB resumes conference play in the coming week, hosting Ozarks at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday before welcoming UT-Dallas to Belton in a 3 p.m. duel on Saturday.
