Photo by Riley Zayas
BROWNWOOD — All season, UMHB head coach Sam Patterson has talked about The Cru’s non-conference slate serving as preparation for the ASC portion of the schedule, particularly in the styles of play his team has faced.
Playing on the road for the second time in five days, UMHB put its prior experience against up-tempo opponents into practice on Saturday afternoon, handling Howard Payne’s athleticism and scoring ability with poise while getting 20-point performances from Hudson Johnson, Elijah Lawrence, and Donta Coady. Having already beaten a pair of high-octane offensive squads in Concordia (TX) and Redlands earlier in the year, the Crusaders held the nation’s fourth-ranked scoring attack to 6.3 points below its season average while shooting 53.4% from the field, churning out a 110-90 victory inside Brownwood Coliseum.
UMHB is now 2-0 in ASC play, with three of its last four conference matchups coming at home.
“We knew we were going to get a lot of transition opportunities,” said Patterson, whose Crusaders outpaced one of the D-III’s highest-tempo teams, with a 25-6 advantage in fast-break points. “With the quick turnaround from ETBU, we didn’t get as much time to go live, but we’ve been in those situations enough. We were really efficient trying to get layups and not settling for 3s early. I thought it was a really balanced attack today.”
Five Crusaders scored in double figures along with nine points from Cam Stinson, whose 3-pointer with 16:46 left in the first half took back the lead after HPU went up 8-4. The contributions weren’t just balanced in the scoring column, though. The same was true in the assist category, as UMHB’s ball movement was exceptional, especially coming off a steal or defensive rebound.
When an opportunity to push the ball upcourt presented itself, The Cru took it, though they didn’t do so in a reckless, turnover-prone kind of way. Intertwining aggression with fluidity, UMHB tallied 24 assists on 39 made field goals, producing several of those layups Patterson referenced, while turning it over only 14 times.
That included a sequence with 11:43 left in the opening half, after HPU’s Ben Phillip cut the UMHB lead to 25-20 on a jumper. The Cru missed its ensuing 3-point attempt, giving the Yellow Jackets a chance to pull within one possession as Phillip drove to the rim. But Johnson came up with a steal instead, then lofted the ball above the retreating HPU defenders to Elijah Lawrence on the other end. Lawrence went right at the basket as HPU’s Jordan McClendon chased him down, and got the layup to fall…along with a foul call.
The graduate student hit the free throw that followed for a three-point play, building UMHB’s lead to 28-20, which at that point was its largest of the game.
Saturday’s performance went down as The Cru’s highest-rated offensive game this season, ranking in the 99th percentile per CBB Analytics, averaging 1.42 points per possession. It also featured their second-highest single-game paint points total (46) and third-most fast-break points (25).
But the key to the win? It came defensively, which feels like an odd statement to make in a contest with a combined 200 points. But as UMHB knew from matching up with Belhaven early and Concordia and Redlands in December, the transition scoring would come within the flow of the game. The 3-point shots would be there; The Cru was 13-of-30 from beyond the arc. But to truly pull away, as UMHB did in the second half, it required focus defensively. At its best, HPU has the capability of getting hot in a hurry, as the Yellow Jackets showed with a 9-5 run in the final 2:20 of the opening half.
“We knew it would come down to 3-point defense,” Patterson said afterwards. “They made some shots in the first half, five of them being 3s. We really didn’t want to let Ben Phillip make any more in the second half, because I feel like he’s just an elite-level shooter. That second half was an inspired half of basketball, and I thought we were the tougher team at the end of the day. This is a game that honors toughness.”
HPU shot just 9-of-24 from beyond the arc, missing five of its first six 3s of the second half. Two of those came from Phillip, a 6-foot-5 senior guard from Boerne, Texas, who connected on all three of his long-range attempts in the first half, but only got one of his next six to fall in the final 20 minutes. Holding Phillip—who had a game-high 22 points for HPU—at bay in the second half was a collective effort, and helped to surpress the Yellow Jackets’ firepower.
UMHB led 52-49 at the break, but saw its lead challenged for the entirety of the first four minutes of the second half. With 17:09 to go, 6-foot-7 big man Carter May converted on two free throws, trimming the Crusader lead to one. On the next trip down the floor, May received a pass from Phillip low in the post, scoring on a layup off the glass for a 59-58 HPU lead as the home crowd expressed its approval.
With the momentum favoring the Yellow Jackets, Coady stepped up for The Cru. The 6-foot-5 forward, who Patterson has lauded all season for his defensive ability, showed up in a big way on the offensive end. Coady had a few moments to remember in the first half, none bigger than his baseline dunk with 6:02 left to stop a 7-0 HPU run. But it didn’t compare to the second half sequence in which he scored eight points in the span of 1:25, taking UMHB from a one-point deficit to a seven-point lead.
With 16:30, he knocked down a corner 3 to put UMHB back in front. With 15:57, he hit another from beyond the arc on The Cru’s next trip down the floor. Then finally at the 15:16 mark, the Arlington native raced ahead of the retreating Yellow Jackets on a fast break, catching a long pass from Lawrence in stride as he sent UMHB into a timeout up 66-59.
“He responds the right way throughout the course of the game,” Patterson said of Coady, who shot 9-of-12 from the field en route to a career-high 22 points. “I feel like when we need a big shot, Donta is there to make one. When we need a stop, he’s there to get his hands on a basketball or get a big rebound.
“I thought he catipulted our run in the second half. Credit to Howard Payne, they came out in the second half and threw the first punch. But it was that response that led with Donta, where we were able to respond and grow that out. Once we saw that 10-point cushion, I felt like it was even more inspired after that.”
The timely plays from Coady continued even after that string of three scores in less than 90 seconds. With 9:30 left, he leapt up and grabbed his own miss between three HPU defenders, pulling down the offensive rebound before going back up with it and drawing a foul on a layup that went through. He made the free throw for a 13-point advantage, then tallied a steal just eight seconds later. And who could forget his statement dunk as the clock dipped below eight minutes?
Lawrence received an outlet pass after the defense forced an HPU miss, and immediately lofted a pass to Coady, who was sprinting up the court. HPU’s Jackson Tomlin had a beat on it and leapt to deflect the pass, but Coady got above the 5-foot-10 guard, batting the ball to Grant Jessen across the court. Jessen’s feet had barely touched the ground before he sent the ball right back to Coady, who slammed the ball through the net for an 88-73 lead.
By that point, the momentum was all in UMHB’s favor. The Cru outscored the Yellow Jackets, 58-41, over the second 20 minutes, leading by as many as 26 with 2:57 to go when Lawrence reached the 20-point mark with his second 3.
The Cru closed on a 22-14 run, with 11 of those points coming from Johnson, who had quite the afternoon in his former home arena. The Salado native—and former HPU Yellow Jacket—scored a team-high 26 points with 17 coming in the second half, shooting 10-of-19 from the field. Between the 7:03 and 4:10 marks, Johnson connected on a trio of 3s, stretching the lead to 99-78 on this third before pushing UMHB across the century mark with a layup one possession later.
The Cru’s 110-point output marked its highest-scoring road game since Jan. 5, 2019, when UMHB set a new program record with 121 against Louisiana College. And that was a triple-overtime contest. Bolstered by its depth—four different players recorded 10+ minutes off the bench—The Cru set the pace and never relented down the stretch, even in a high-possession game where fatigue can be a threat.
“I wanted to sub early in the first half, just to get guys a little bit of a breather and get other guys in the game,” Patterson said. “I thought Zach May provided some really good stretches defensively and matched up with Ben [Phillip] really well. Cam [Stinson] picked up two quick fouls but was able to come in during the first half and impact the game. Our depth is definitely a strength of ours. Once we get to six, seven, eight, nine, and ten [in our rotation], I have so much confidence in our guys. We have a plethora of guys who have starting ability but also have the selflessness to not care about that stuff.”
UMHB’s ASC schedule rolls on with its home conference opener next Saturday, hosting ETBU (6-15, 0-2 ASC), who led Hardin-Simmons, 30-25, at halftime on Saturday. UMHB and HSU are tied atop the league standings at 2-0, though HSU will play three of its last four on the road, including a trip to Belton on Feb. 10.
