Photo of Kyle Wright by Luke Zayas/True To The Cru
BELTON–For five straight games entering Saturday’s regular season finale against Hardin-Simmons, Kyle Wright had come off the bench for the UMHB men’s basketball team, playing nine minutes or fewer in those five contests, taking just two shots in that span.
It was part of a larger trend for Wright in the second half of this season, as he saw his playing time drop from 20-plus minutes per game to less than 10 in early January.
“It’s never easy as a coach making decisions like that because of what he’s meant to this program over the last four years,” UMHB head coach Clif Carroll said of the decision to mix up the rotation, which resulted in limited playing time for Wright. “We left like, with our team in that stretch, we needed to make a change in personnel.”
So Wright, who started in each of The Cru’s first 13 games of the current season, along with all 29 in 2022-23, headed to the bench.
“It was frustrating,” Wright said with emotion in his voice, looking back on the last two months. “I had high expectations for myself. It’s been tough. You just have to keep fighting, keep believing.”
He played only nine minutes in the road loss to first-place HSU on Jan. 11, but in the rematch against the Cowboys, and on Senior Day no less, Wright pieced together a memorable performance over 30 minutes that culminated in a standing ovation from the home crowd as he was subbed out with less than a minute left in The Cru’s eventual 110-91 victory.
“I told myself, ‘If I get an opportunity again, I’m going to make the most of it,’” Wright added.
The opportunity for increased minutes on Saturday was in part due to keeping Josh Goings to a lesser stretch of playing time, as Goings recovers from illness. But Carroll also said it came from seeing Wright perform well in the limited stretches in which he saw action over the last several weeks.
“He’s had really, really good practices,” Carroll said of Wright. “We’ve given him little pieces of games and he’s handled it well. Josh Goings has been fighting some illness this week, and I didn’t want Josh to have to play a lot of minutes. So I knew Kyle was going to play a bigger role today.”
When he exited the court on Saturday afternoon, his stat line read: 33 points, six rebounds, five assists. The 33 points marked a career-high for the prolific guard, whose previous best was 19 points against, coincidentally, Hardin-Simmons. He shot 10-of-14 from the field, 7-of-9 from 3-point range, and a perfect 6-of-6 at the free throw line.
“I got a workout in with one of my teammates [earlier],” Wright said. “When I saw one [shot] go in during practice, I jokingly said, ‘This is going to be a good one tonight.’”
It certainly was. Especially for Wright, but also for the Crusaders as a whole, who are still very much in the hunt for a third-straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
The victory closes the regular season for UMHB with a 15-9 record, as The Cru secured the No. 4 seed in the ASC Tournament. HSU dropped to 12-4 in league play, but earned a share of the ASC regular season title, and due to a tiebreaker with co-champion UT-Dallas, will host the final two rounds of the conference tournament.
“We always knew what we were capable of,” Wright said, when asked about the current six-game win streak. “When we started the season in Illinois 2-0, we had high expectations. Every team has to fight through that adversity and when it comes to February and March, it’s about who’s rolling at the right time.”
For UMHB, the adversity was spotlighted just a little more over the early part of this season, considering The Cru’s success over the previous two years, which included back-to-back appearances in the second weekend of the national tournament. There was a string of four straight losses between Nov. 15 and Dec. 2, and then the deflating defeat at the hands of Howard Payne, 96-79, in mid-December.
When the 103-92 loss to Hardin-Simmons came around, the Cru found themselves 3-4 in ASC play, and simply fighting for a return trip to the conference tournament, much less the NCAAs.
“The night of Howard Payne, if you had told me we would finish tied for third in the conference and host an ASC Tournament game, I would’ve told you you were crazy,” Carroll said. “That team, on that night, had some major flaws. We had to get things turned around or we were going to get buried in the standings.”
Things finally stabilized in early February and it seems UMHB has not looked back. Within the last 10 days, the Crusaders have scored wins over the top two teams in the ASC—Hardin-Simmons and UT-Dallas—and emerged with hard-fought overtime wins against Ozarks and McMurry. All of it has given UMHB momentum as the postseason arrives.
“I think we’re definitely playing our best basketball right now,” Carroll noted postgame.
UMHB jumped out to a 57-35 lead by halftime against HSU, having started the day with a 17-4 lead. Jerry Day, Josiah Johnson, and Wright all connected on key 3-pointers as the advantage was extended in the game’s early minutes. The offense flowed smoothly, and by the 10:09 mark, UMHB led 31-12.
The lead extended to as many as 43-18 with 6:38 on the clock, as another 3-pointer from Johnson put UMHB up by 25. Wright was at the center of the offensive production, and closed the half by scoring The Cru’s final five points.
It was a performance that seemed to be a long time coming for a senior who, even in the midst of playing sparingly in the weeks prior, never lost his competitive edge or commitment to the team’s overall success.
“He never pouted, he never complained,” Carroll said of Wright’s response. “You can just tell, in games, he’s engaged. Every timeout, he’s crouched down right next to me and he’s coached these guys just like he’s one of my staff in practice. He’s had to work through some things and I was really proud of him tonight, putting it together. That’s what he can do.”
He scored UMHB’s 100th point of the day on a free throw with 3:30 left, and then connected on a 3-pointer at the 1:45 mark for a 107-87 lead. As a team, The Cru converted on 17 3-pointers, a season-high and finished 53.1 percent from beyond the arc.
In addition to Wright’s stellar performance, Johnson had a 30-point, 10-rebound double-double, and Payton Brooks connected on a 3-pointer late, playing 24 minutes in the win. For all three, it marked the final regular season game of their careers as Crusaders.
Now the focus turns to a quick turnaround on Tuesday, and an ASC Tournament quarterfinal matchup with ETBU. It is yet another duel between the Cru and Tigers, who notably faced off in last year’s Second Round NCAA Tournament matchup, capped by Johnson’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer. This season, the two teams split the two regular season games between them, with UMHB winning 79-69 in Belton, and ETBU winning 67-60 in Marshall.
“The good thing is that a lot of the stuff we prepared for this week translates to East Texas, with the post play and high-lows and stuff like that,” Carroll said. “ETBU is always a tough game.”
Tuesday’s contest tips off at 7 p.m. CT from the Mayborn Campus Center in Belton.
Game Notes
- The 17 made 3-pointers tied the program-high for 3-pointers in a single game. It is a feat that has only been accomplished three other times; 2017-18 at McMurry, 2017-18 vs Southwestern, 2020-21 at Howard Payne.
- Combined with UMHB’s 110-102 win over McMurry on Thursday, UMHB has now scored at least 110 points twice in a season for the first time in program history.
- It is also the first time the Crusaders have tallied 100 points or more in consecutive games since Feb. 1, 2020.
- UMHB shot 53.7 percent from the field, good enough for The Cru’s highest shooting percentage in a game this season.
- The Cru dished out 25 assists, which makes it just the second time this season that UMHB has recorded 20 or more assists in a game.
