Photo of Cam Stinson (#4) by Luke Zayas/True To The Cru/Backwards Hat Media
BELTON — With roughly 10 minutes left in Tuesday night’s clash between UMHB and Centenary (La.), Cam Stinson caught a pass a few feet in front of the Crusader bench.
Over the 10-minute stretch to open the second half, Stinson and his UMHB (2-2) teammates had been on a rollercoaster of sorts, beginning with a string of 3s in a 9-0 run that gave The Cru its first lead followed by an 8-0 spurt from Centenary (0-5) to put the Gents right back in it. By the time Stinson lined up for a corner 3 coming out of a timeout, the visitors from Shreveport had whittled UMHB’s nine-point advantage down to one.
But the native of Tallahassee, Florida wasn’t about to let Centenary gain any more ground. He swished the 3 as the bench leapt to its feet, pushing The Cru’s lead back to two possessions, 56-52.
It did more than just that, though. Stinson’s long-range shot ignited a 25-3 run over the next 4:40, putting the game away as UMHB coasted to an 83-62 victory inside the Mayborn Campus Center.
“I put in the work every day,” Stinson, who led UMHB with 19 points and shot 4-of-6 from 3-point range, said postgame. “All glory to God, just being able to come in and do what I love every single day and have faith in it. When the first one went in, it felt like a great day. I just kept letting it go and they just kept falling for me.”
Stinson had 11 of The Cru’s 25 points in the game-shifting run, hitting another 3 with 8:18 left before going right at a Centenary defender on a floater that widened UMHB’s lead to 13. The graduate student spearheaded the Crusaders’ most impressive stretch of the night, a span in which they shot 8-of-11 from the field, 4-of-6 from beyond the 3-point arc, and a perfect 5-of-5 at the free throw line while not turning it over once.
There will be tougher opponents to come over the next 14 days, as UMHB gets St. Thomas (4-1), Whitworth (4-0), Whitman (3-2), and No. 16 Trinity (TX) (5-1) in consecutive order on the road, but for those five minutes on Tuesday night, head coach Sam Patterson’s squad looked remarkably crisp, cohesive, and frankly, unbeatable; all good signs heading into one of the most difficult portions of this season’s non-conference slate.
“That’s the play style that Coach instills in us every day in practice,” Stinson said of UMHB pushing the pace and widening the gap quickly without turning it over. “Being able to play fast, but also play controlled. ‘Controlled chaos’ is what he calls it. We like to get out fast, play fast, share the ball with each other, but also make sure we’re doing it where we’re keeping the ball home with us.”
On the tail-end of the run, Hudson Johnson stole the ball on the defensive end as Centenary guard Jaden Braden was mid-dribble and went the length of the floor for a layup that gave UMHB a 75-55 lead. For as impressive as the offense was on an evening in which the Crusaders shot 44.8% and dished out 10 assists in the second half, Johnson’s steal-and-score provided a visual of the real key in UMHB’s eventual 21-point victory: getting stops on the defensive end.
“It starts on defense,” Patterson said afterwards. “We’re able to play fast when we get stops. So we were able to get stops in the second half that helped us get out in transition. And when we’re in transition, we’re really a lethal team offensively.”
The defensive presence improved as the game progressed. Early in the first half, it was Centenary who controlled the narrative, charging out of the gate on a 13-0 run that forced Patterson to use his first timeout less than three minutes in. The Gents connected on each of their first three 3-point attempts while simultaneously capitalizing on back-to-back UMHB turnovers, a statement start from a team that came into Tuesday’s game with the fifth-lowest 3-point shooting percentage in Division III (21.5%).
That opening run kept Centenary in the lead for all but 96 seconds of the first half. The Gents held firm to their advantage, but saw the gap dwindle as the game’s first 20 minutes unfolded. Pretty soon after Patterson’s first timeout, UMHB answered with a 10-2 spurt, and by the 7-minute mark, had the deficit down to one.
Patterson said postgame that while they adjusted the way they were guarding dribble-handoffs—the action that had created multiple open 3s for Centenary—it went back to energy. Once his players answered the Gents’ early intensity, they found themselves knocking on the door to the lead.
That included plays like the one from Zach Engels with about 7:10 left in the first half, as the senior tracked down a long pass down the court from Nicholas Addison in the direction of 6’9 big man Bryce Evans. Leaping in the path of the deep pass like a defensive back, Engels created a key deflection, getting it to Elijah Lawrence who immediately found Stinson in the left corner for a 3.
“My message to our players wasn’t anything schematically, and it wasn’t anything Xs and Os,” Patterson noted. “I thought Centenary came out with more energy than we had. So we have to be able to come out with more energy from the jump, especially at home.
“But I was happy to see our guys’ response. I thought Grant [Jessen] and Donta [Coady] provided a spark off the bench with their energy. And then in the second half, Cam really came out and shot the ball well. He did just what we expect him to do, and that’s be a scorer and a facilitator.”
Coady’s tip-in with 16:07 in the first half ended Centenary’s string of unanswered scores, and the senior forward finished with 13 points in 22 minutes. His +/- in the first half (a stat that reflects the difference in score between the two teams when that individual player is on the court) was +8, the second-highest on the team next to Jessen. A JUCO transfer, Jessen was +10 in the opening 20 minutes, and finished with five points and five rebounds in the win.
While the Crusaders had a handful of key sequences throughout the first half as they climbed towards a strong conclusion, none proved more impactful than the three plays at the very end. With 37 seconds until halftime, Coady found space and scored in the paint off Engels’ third assist, cutting the Gents’ lead to 36-33. The Cru strategically scored with enough time on the game clock to ensure they would get another possession, and after Centenary leading scorer Quentin Beverly—who finished with 12 points—missed a 3 with 17 seconds left, the chance at a “2-for-1” came into play. With under five seconds, Lawrence dribbled to the left wing before turning and whipping a pass to Johnson, who was standing on the “B” of the UMHB logo that covers midcourt, at least six feet above the 3-point line.
The range was no issue for Johnson, who finished 4-of-6 from long-range but had not yet taken a 3-point shot in the game. The senior guard drained the high-arcing shot at the buzzer, giving UMHB valuable momentum heading into the break. It tied the score at 36 apiece and more importantly, set the tone for the second half.
“That end of the half momentum was so huge,” Patterson said. “We work on two-for-ones in practice and we’ve missed opportunities for those in games already this year. So for us to execute a two-for-one at the end of the half and get that momentum was huge for the energy in the locker room. Now we feel like it’s back to 0-0, and we can play our brand.”
Getting back to that identity paid dividends. UMHB outscored Centenary, 47-26, in the second half, and led for all but eight seconds in those final 20 minutes. The Cru also added 12 second-chance points and 10 fast-break points after being limited in both areas early on.
It sets The Cru up with confidence heading into four straight games away from Belton, the first of which comes in Houston at 5 p.m. on Saturday against St. Thomas (TX). The Celts received the third-most votes of any unranked team in Monday D3hoops.com Top 25 Poll and knocked off ASC preseason favorite Hardin-Simmons in overtime Tuesday, 80-74. UMHB is 1-1 all-time against St. Thomas, who has reached the NCAA Tournament in each of the last three seasons.
| Box Score | 1st | 2nd | Final |
| Centenary | 36 | 26 | 62 |
| UMHB | 36 | 47 | 83 |
