ABILENE, Texas — UMHB withstood—and countered—Hardin-Simmons’ first several punches on Saturday afternoon.
But the Cowboys had one last surge left in the tank when the game dipped below two minutes. And that was the one The Cru found itself unable to fully answer.
Silas Davis hit a 3-pointer from the left wing and Tyler Williams scored in traffic on a putback, leading the hosts down the stretch in a rematch of the ASC’s top two title contenders. UMHB (17-7, 4-1 ASC) cut the deficit back to three but never pulled any closer in crunch time, as HSU (15-5, 4-1 ASC) got its revenge for Tuesday’s 93-90 loss, prevailing on its home court, 86-80.
By virtue of the head-to-head point differential tiebreaker, HSU will be in line to host the ASC Tournament in the case that both teams win their respective regular season finales next Saturday. HSU faces ETBU on the road while UMHB hosts Howard Payne.
“We were up three with about four minutes to go and then we just didn’t execute on offense,” UMHB head coach Sam Patterson said postgame. “We turned the ball over way too many times. At the end of the day, we were a -18 in points off turnovers and a -12 in free throw makes. We can’t win many games going -30 in those areas.”
UMHB turned it over 19 times—including 12 second-half turnovers—while the Cowboys were forced into just eight turnovers. HSU capitalized with 22 points off UMHB’s turnovers, scoring 15 of them over the final 20 minutes. The Crusaders’ turnover total tied for their third-most in a single game this season, brought about in part by 10 steals from the Cowboy defense.
“They were really physical with Hudson [Johnson],” Patterson said when asked about the -11 turnover differential and HSU’s defense. “I think the physicality off the ball, making it really tough for him to have any freedom of movement, made it hard. I thought we were overdribbling at times, and had a lot of ballhandling turnovers. That was probably the bigger adjustment [from Tuesday]: the physicality they had off the ball.”
Even still, UMHB held its ground in a difficult road environment, as the crowd of 1,154 inside the Mabee Complex was treated to yet another down-to-the-wire thriller between the Crusaders and Cowboys. The contest featured 17 lead changes—13 in the first half alone—along with six ties, living up the anticipation coming off Tuesday’s instant classic, which was decided in overtime.
Much like that matchup in Belton, HSU claimed a commanding lead early in the second half, twice burying The Cru in a 12-point hole in the first five minutes out of halftime. Then it was on UMHB to respond. Just as they did on Tuesday, the Crusaders dug deep and found an offensive rhythm when they needed it most, putting together a high-flying 17-3 run over a four-minute stretch, highlighted by Cam Stinson’s game-tying 3-pointer from the right wing with 10:39 to go.
After starting the second half by making just two of its first six field goal attempts, UMHB made five of its next seven, pulling even before a Zach Engels layup delivered The Cru’s first lead since the 9:10 mark of the first half.
“Basketball is a game of runs, and our guys are resilient,” Patterson said. “They always respond. When we were down 12, we had to regroup, and made some substitutions. I thought John [Leggett], Grant [Jessen], Cam, Josiah [Wray] stepped up and we made our run with our bench. But for us to have those runs, we have to get stops. I thought we did a good job of getting stops and converting on the other end.”
In that stretch, UMHB’s defensive effort matched its performance on the offensive end, forcing the Cowboys into low-percentage shots. HSU went just 1-of-5 from the field during The Cru’s best run of the afternoon.
“We base our defense more on what kind of shot selection we give up,” Patterson added. “I thought during that run, we forced some tough shots, and we were able to limit it to one shot, and get out and run.”
From that point until the 1:56 mark, UMHB hung tight with its West Texas rivals, keeping it a one-possession game for all but 47 seconds of the eight-minute stretch. The Cru led for a good portion of that competitive span, countering with a Grant Jessen 3 immediately after All-American forward Chris Bryant put the hosts in front, 68-67, with 5:45 left.
HSU then went up by four when Tyler Williams cut to the lane, received a pass from Bryant, and soared to the rim for an emphatic two-handed slam dunk that energized the home crowd. But Johnson quelled the Cowboys’ momentum less than a minute later, getting to the free throw line with 3:01 to go, where he cut the advantage back to three.
It was the beginning of the game’s most crucial point; one that ended up favoring HSU. UMHB went 4 minutes, 17 seconds without a made field goal, and in between, the Cowboys scored 11 points.
The lengthy scoring drought couldn’t have come at a worse time for The Cru, who shot the ball well for the majority of the contest, going 50.9% from the field. Instead of heating up on the offensive end—as they did in the closing minutes of the second half in Tuesday’s win—the Crusaders struggled against HSU’s defensive pressure, falling behind by eight when Williams rebounded a miss from Chris Bryant and went back up with a layup of his own.
Elijah Lawrence hit an NBA-range 3-pointer on UMHB’s very next trip down the floor, and Johnson added two free throws with 39 seconds left, making it a one-possession game once again, 79-76.
But the rally came a little late, and against the ASC’s top free throw shooting team—HSU entered Saturday averaging the fourth-most made free throws per game in Division III—closing the gap proved difficult. Bryant scored on a hook shot coming out of a timeout, and the Cowboys went 5-of-6 at the foul line in the final 15 seconds, wrapping up their sixth-straight home win.
“Chris Bryant is really talented and he can finish inside the paint pretty well,” Patterson said of HSU’s leading scorer, who had 20 points.
Bryant also had a game-high 11 rebounds, grabbing eight on the offensive end. That played directly into HSU’s 17 second-chance points, an area the Cowboys controlled in both halves. Bryant was responsible for 11 of those 17 points, as HSU’s second-chance efforts went hand-in-hand with their physicality, keeping the hosts in it despite making one fewer field goal and four fewer 3s.
“Short shots are usually short rebounds, and I thought our first shot defense was pretty good most of the day,” Patterson said. “But being able to block out after those first shot misses is important. They definitely did a good job on second-chance points.
“We didn’t execute well. We turned the ball over way too many times. And we didn’t do a good job guarding wthout fouling. So for all the things we can improve on, to be up four with three minutes to go and have a chance down the stretch was good by our guys.”
The Cru’s turnover woes started early. By the game’s second media timeout of the first half, roughly eight minutes in, UMHB had five turnovers to HSU’s two. But a pair of 3s from Johnson kept The Cru in lockstep, trailing 15-14 at that point.
That was the story of the first half, with neither side giving in as they traded scores the entire way. It was during the middle portion of the opening period that Jessen emerged off the bench, stepping up in a similar way to his 14-point performance against HSU earlier in the week. The athletic 6-foot-4 junior guard scored eight points in his first six minutes on the floor, hitting three of his first four shots.
Jessen ended up with a productive stat line, setting a career-high in scoring (17 points) to go along with a team-high three blocks and four rebounds. His efficiency rating of 21.0 was the highest amongst the nine Crusaders who saw action in Abilene.
With 10:54 left in the half, he pulled UMHB within one on a 3-pointer, then followed with a layup on The Cru’s next possession, gaining a 19-18 lead. He added a second 3-pointer just over a minute later for a two-point advantage, which turned out to be UMHB’s largest lead of the first 20 minutes.
HSU took control soon after, paced by 6-foot-6 junior Asher Fleming, who finished with 18 points. The Cowboys’ leading scorer in the first half, Fleming had six of HSU’s 11 points as part of a game-shifting run over the final six minutes leading into the break, as he and Trevion Howell hit back-to-back 3s before Fleming sank a pair of free throws for a 42-33 lead.
But just as they did in the second half when faced with a 12-point deficit, The Cru quickly countered HSU’s surge with one of its own. UMHB scored nine of the last 11 points of the half, with Engels accounting for seven of them, including a 3 from the right corner with nine seconds until halftime. It made it a two-point game at the intermission, HSU leading 44-42.
Engels finished the game tied with Johnson for the team-high in scoring (19 points) while grabbing a team-best nine rebounds. The senior scored 18-plus points for the third straight game, fueling The Cru in the first half with 12 points before providing the lead-grabbing layup midway through the second 20 minutes.
His 3-pointer set the tone for a competitive second half, as UMHB and HSU split their two-game regular season series for the second time in the last three seasons. The hosts flipped both the rebound margin and honed in on their inside scoring over the second 20 minutes, outrebounding The Cru, 18-16, while tallying 20 points in the paint to UMHB’s 14.
The bitterness of the loss can only linger for so long, though, as UMHB looks ahead with a chance to win at least a share of the ASC regular season title next Saturday. In a conference where there are no easy tests, UMHB welcomes in a Howard Payne squad that appears to be peaking at the right time. The Yellow Jackets knocked off ETBU, 104-86, in Brownwood on Saturday, earning their first conference win of the season.
Since Nov. 22, The Cru is 5-0 in games immediately following a loss. They intend to keep that streak intact in front of what will surely be a strong home crowd on Senior Day.
“The message right now is we have to learn after a loss,” Patterson said. “It’s pretty obvious which areas we have to improve in. Then 100 percent of the focus is on that Howard Payne game and honoring these seniors the right way, and not worrying about things we can’t control. The only thing in front of us that we can control is that Howard Payne senior day game. And then we’ll see what happens and where we’ll end up playing the conference tournament.”
If there’s any consolation to the loss, it’s the fact that Patterson believes his team still has not reached its peak, even sitting at 17-7 in mid-February. And if that’s the case, it’s a scary reality for the rest of the ASC, with UMHB’s motivation high coming off a game in which they battled well, but hurt themselves with self-inflicted miscues.
“We have 17 wins and I don’t think we’ve played two great halves back-to-back yet,” Patterson said. “We’ve had good halves mixed with great halves, and average halves mixed with good second halves. But I think we can still improve and try to put together two great halves of basketball.
“Sometimes it takes a bump in the road to recalibrate and refocus. That was the message at the end of the game. It’d be a lot more disappointing if we felt like we played a good game and lost, where it was, ‘We did everything we could and just weren’t the better team.’ But in our players’ minds, we have yet to put together two great halves. We have areas we need to improve in.”
