Hudson Johnson (pictured above) had 21 points for UMHB in Thursday’s road duel at LETU (Photo: Luke Zayas/True To The Cru/Backwards Hat Media)
LONGVIEW, Texas — When UMHB’s starting lineup was announced inside Solheim Arena on Thursday night, it was a noticeably different group than the quintet that took the floor the last time The Cru played on the road at LeTourneau a season ago.
Of the three returners in first-year head coach Sam Patterson’s starting five—Zachary Engels, Zach May, and Connor Zamiara—only Zamiara and May played in the Feb. 13, 2025 road duel in Longview, combining for just 14 minutes off the bench, while Engels sat out with an injury. The two others starting in UMHB’s second game of the 2025-26 season—Hudson Johnson and Elijah Lawrence—were transfers who had either faced LeTourneau with other programs the last two years or never at all.
UMHB’s starting lineup against the Yellowjackets had no shortage of experience, composed of three seniors, a graduate student, and a sophomore. For that matter, the entire rotation was seasoned, with three of the four who ended up with double-digit minutes off the bench being juniors or seniors.
But as Patterson noted, for as much experience as his team has, much of that experience hasn’t come while on the court together. And that’s an important distinction.
“Like I told the guys, we do have a lot of experience on our team, but we don’t have a lot of experience together,” Patterson said. “On paper, we’ve got guys who have played a lot of minutes and a lot of places, but we just haven’t had the time together to really take advantage of that.”
That dynamic showed up at times in Sunday’s season-opening, 82-74 loss to Trinity. And late in the game on Thursday, it made itself noticeable again. The Cru, who led 51-40 at halftime, battled hard down the stretch, holding the lead for the first 13 minutes of the second half. But LETU chipped away starting at the 15-minute mark, and eventually whittled down UMHB’s double-digit advantage until the Yellowjackets claimed a 75-74 lead on Teigan Edwards’ layup with 6:19 to go.
The Crusaders made efforts to keep the game from slipping away, but at times moved away from their identity on both ends of the floor. Ill-timed turnovers, forced passes, and a hot shooting stretch from LETU in which the hosts closed the contest by making seven of their final 12 shots—with four of those seven from 3-point range—were too much in a difficult road environment. The Yellowjackets finished on a 22-11 scoring run and pulled away in the game’s final minute for a 92-85 win.
“They made a run to start the half, then we answered the run,” Patterson said, reflecting on UMHB’s second single-digit loss in as many games. “After the first media timeout, we were still +1 for the half. It was from that 15-minute mark down to the end of the game that it really separated. We just didn’t have an answer for their second run.”
Heading into their road opener, the Crusaders had three main objectives: turn the ball over fewer than nine times, hold LETU to no more than nine 3-pointers, and keep the Yellowjackets at nine points or below in transition. At halftime, they were on pace for two of those three. On offense they had turned it over just six times, and defensively, the Yellowjackets were well below nine fast-break points, with LETU’s lone bright spot being a 7-of-17 mark from 3-point range.
Those were the products of a remarkable first half that began with Lawrence hitting a 3 on UMHB’s very first possession, and ended with the defense forcing a pair of missed layups as LETU tried, with no success, to cut the game to single-digits before the intermission. Of their 20 made shots, 13 were assisted, a sign of offensive cohesion and the sort of ball movement that leads to productive possessions.
“We played well in the first half, and the ball was moving,” said Patterson, whose team shot an impressive 54.1% from the field, and 10-of-19 from 3-point range, in the first 20 minutes. “We felt like the only way they were going to end up coming back is if we turned the ball over and they made 3s.”
Unfortunately for The Cru, that’s what happened. LETU opened the second half on a 5-0 run, then cut the deficit to single digits for good with 14:45 left. The Yellowjackets used a steady presence inside and several timely 3s as they mounted a comeback, no shot from beyond the arc bigger than Jackson Mayes’ 3 with 2:10 left. That shot from LETU’s leading scorer—Mayes had 24 points—pushed the lead back to two possessions, 86-82, after Johnson made four straight free throws to bring UMHB within a point of tying the score. While Johnson countered with a 3 of his own, that was as close as The Cru got over the final two minutes.
And as for the turnovers? After turning it over only six times in the first half, UMHB finished with 10 turnovers in the second, an aspect that gave additional opportunities to LETU’s offense at a time when the Yellowjackets were already clicking on that end of the floor.
“For that stretch in the second half, we just played into their hands, forced some things that weren’t there,” Patterson noted. “That led to live-ball turnovers, which led to transition opportunities for them.”
There were other things too, like the 16 offensive rebounds that led to 21 second-chance points for the Yellowjackets. All of it contributed to the seven-point loss in a game that really was a tale of two halves.
The silver lining is that it’s still early. UMHB is two games into a 25-game regular season with a group that is still meshing and has a long runway leading into the Jan. 24 ASC opener against Hardin-Simmons. They took the preseason No. 2 pick in the Southern Athletic Association to the wire on Sunday, and did the same with the SCAC’s preseason No. 4 pick on the road four days later.
Make no mistake about it, they want to win now. But it also goes back to the idea of being experienced individually, but not necessarily collectively. Each time they step on the floor together, the chemistry, Patterson believes, will strengthen. And eventually, that may turn out to be the difference between a close loss and a close win.
“I’m encouraged, because I think we’ll get there,” Patterson said. “We’re still figuring things out rotation-wise. We’re still figuring out who needs to close games. So I think all that information will come as we play games.
“You can only simulate so much in practice. You’re just not going to get the same feedback as you will in live games. It’s just going to take time. The guys understand that. We played a lot of players tonight. I wanted to try to use our depth to our advantage. I thought everybody that played gave us positive minutes. Maybe not the whole time they were out there, but everybody found a way to impact the game for us positively. That’s encouraging.”
Johnson led The Cru with 21 points, going 8-of-9 at the free throw line along with five assists. Engels added 19 points and Daniel Hutson came off the bench with 12 points in 10 minutes, shooting a perfect 4-for-4. Zamiara finished two rebounds shy of a double-double, with 12 points to go along with a team-high eight rebounds.
UMHB has nine days before it takes the floor again, hosting Belhaven on Nov. 22 for the first time since the two were ASC foes during the 2021-22 campaign. The Crusaders plan to put the extended break to good use as they push for Win No. 1 against a Blazers’ squad that is off to a 2-0 start.
“It’s hard to win on the road,” Patterson said. “We understand that. I think we played probably 32 minutes of our style and the way we want to play, and 32 out of 40 just isn’t going to win many basketball games in a tough environment. We’ve got nine days until Belhaven, so we’re going to get after it this week and be prepared to win a home game next Saturday.”
| Box Score | 1st | 2nd | Final |
| UMHB | 51 | 34 | 85 |
| LETU | 40 | 52 | 92 |
