- Box Score
CANYON – For the first time under head coach Lonn Reisman, the Tarleton Texans were held below 40 points in a game, as Tarleton lost its first Lone Star Conference South Division game of the season at West Texas A&M Wednesday, 44-36.
The Texans shot just 19.6 percent from the field (9-46), leading to Tarleton falling to 4-1 in the division and 13-4 overall.
“This was a very poor effort by us tonight,” Reisman said. “Execution was horrible and we played very, very poorly.”
The 19.6 percent may be the lowest offensive output under Reisman, though records were not available in Canyon before the 2004-05 season, but it is the lowest point total since losing 67-40 to WTAMU on Feb. 18, 1995.
“We have to go back and regroup and see why we did not execute,” Reisman said. “If you hold a team to 34 percent from the field, you should have a chance to win the game. But we got shots out of our sets, but we could not get them to fall.”
The Texans were outrebounded in the loss 39-27.
“We said before the game if we got outrebounded, we would lose,” Reisman said. “We played good enough defense to win the game tonight.”
Tarleton's leading scorer, Corin Henry, did not score until there was 36.7 seconds left in the contest despite averaging 14.1 points per outing this season.
“That doesn't happen very often, he just had a very poor night,” Riesman said. “He had some good looks, they just did not go down for him. We probably played the poorest offensive game that we have played this year.”
Tarleton scored its only bucket in the first 11 minutes of the game when Wale Ogunoye had a putback at 19:12. The Texans didn't score again until Coleman Furst had two free throws at 8:37. The first bucket after Ogunoye's came at 7:47 on a Donta Smith dunk. Luckily for the Texans, the defense was pretty good as the Buffs scored just six points. The dunk tied the game at six points apiece.
Darrion Washington nailed a three for Tarleton to give the Texans a 9-6 advantage. Joe Mincey had two free throws to cut the lead to one before Warren Webb had a putback at 4:52 to make it 11-8. However, Jaciquiese Holcombe had a three 10 seconds later tied the game at 11.
Ogunoye and Holcombe traded free throws before Devon Hills had one of his own. After a layup by LaDarius Hall at 2:02 gave WTAMU a 14-13 lead, Hills had a free throw at 1:13 before Chris Harrell had a steal and was fouled on a layup. He hit both free throws at 19.6 to give Tarleton a 16-14 lead at the half.
Wes Dipprey got his first bucket of the game to start the second half and give Tarleton a four-point advantage before Mason White had a jumper and Rod Little a three to put the home team ahead, 19-18. Smith tied the game for the Texans at 16:02, but Little had an easy layup. Wilson then tied the score with a layup on a feed from Smith to tie the game at 21. He was fouled, but he missed the extra shot. Henderson then had a jumper before Harrell nailed another three to make it 24-23 with 14:19 on the clock.
The Buffs then had four straight free throws to take a 27-24 lead before Little added a free throw at 11:10. Ogunoye broke an almost five-minute scoring drought when he hit two free throws at 9:24 to cut the lead to two. However, Little had a three-point play the hard way to make it 31-26 WTAMU with 8:42 on the clock.
Dipprey had two free throws at 6:33 and one at 4:35 to cut the deficit to four, 33-29. Mincey had a layup at 3:41 to stretch the lead to six prior to two more Dipprey free throws at 3:21. Hall hit a three from the top of the key to make it 38-31.
Tarleton stopped the clock at 57.9 seconds when they fouled Hall, and he hit both sides of the one-and-one. Wilson then hit a three for Tarleton from the left wing to cut the lead to 40-34 with 49.3 seconds on the clock. Holcombe had two free throws with 45.7 seconds left followed by Corin Henry's first bucket of the game on a layup with 36.7 seconds on the clock. Lionel Foster gave the game its final total of 44-36 with 31.4 seconds left with two bonus shots.
Tarleton had no players in double figures as Dipprey led the team with seven points, all scored in the second half – five of which came on free throws.
The Texans shot .188 from the three-point arc (3-16) and .682 from the charity stripe (15-22).
WTAMU was led by Hall and Little with nine points apiece while Holcombe's nine board led the squad.
The Buffs averaged .342 from the field (13-38), .214 from the arc (3-14) and .882 from the line (15-17).
Tarleton will return to action on Saturday, Jan. 29 at home against Texas A&M-Kingsville at 7 p.m. in Wisdom Gym.
