STEPHENVILLE, Texas — Tarleton State Men's Basketball challenged SMU in their season opener on Monday night in the Moody Coliseum with the game feeling much tighter than its 96-76 result would claim.
The back-and-forth battle featured 10 lead changes and five ties. The Texans (0-1) led multiple times in the first half and trailed by 10, 48-38 at the break. The Mustangs (1-0) never surrendered the lead in the second half, despite the Texans cutting their deficit down to five with eight minutes to go.
"I thought we played really hard for the most part," said head coach
Billy Gillispie. "Most of our guys really did that. It's a starting point and we know we can do better."
Dior Johnson led all scorers in the game with 23. Johnson shot a perfect eight-for-eight from the charity stripe and three-for-four from beyond the arc. He also grabbed four boards and dished out one assist.
The Texans totaled four scorers in double digits.
Freddy Hicks made his return for his fifth season donning the Purple and White scoring 15. He shot 13-for-15 from the line and added a bucket from the floor. He dished out a team-best five assists and added four boards.
Chris Mpaka and
DJ Dormu each added 10 points apiece. Mpaka led the squad with six boards and Dormu added three assists. Dormu tallied a team-high two steals.
The Texans took an early lead, with Dormu connecting on a three-pointer for the first Texan basket of the season. Dormu gave Tarleton State a 3-2 advantage in the first two minutes of the contest. But, 15 seconds later, SMU responded with a three of their own to regain the lead. Hicks scored his first points of the season on a 3-0 run of his own, hitting three of his four free throws in back-to-back trips to the line. Hicks became the first Texan to score in five different seasons in the D1 era. The freebies gave the Texans their second lead of the game, 6-5 just under three minutes into the game.
After the Mustangs stung together six points,
Andy Sigiscar hammered home the first Texan dunk of the season. Hicks gave Sigiscar the ball in space for him to come straight into the paint and slam it home for his first points as a Texan. Sigiscar made a hook shot over the SMU big man on the very next possession to score four consecutive Texan points. Johnson found his first points of the season on the next Tarleton State possession with a mid-range jumper. Dormu drove the lane off a pass from Hicks to score his first of 10 first half points to bring the Texans within four, 18-14, with 13 minutes left in the half.
Later in the half, Dormu sunk his first three-pointer off a loose ball flip from
Kaia Isaac. Isaac dished out the assist while laying on the ground and finding Dormu at the top of the arc. After a media timeout, Isaac found the bottom of the net for his first collegiate triple off an assist from
Jordan Mizell, to cut the Texans deficit to two, 24-22.
With the Texans trailing 28-24, the crew engineered a 6-0 run to take a 30-28 lead with 6:26 to go in the half. Isaac made his second three of the game to bring the Texans within one. On the very next possession, Hicks found the hands of Johnson on the wing where he sunk a three-pointer to put the Texans ahead. The Mustangs regained the lead briefly, before Hicks swapped the scoreboard with a perfect two-for-two trip at the free throw line to put the Texans out in front once again. Dormu scored his 10th point of the half on a jumper to give the Texans their final lead of the game, 34-33 with 5:06 to go in the first half. The Mustangs took control in the final minutes of the first half. SMU outscored the Texans, 15-4 in the remainder of the half to take a 48-38 lead into the break.
The Texans scored seven points in the first four minutes of the second half, all coming from the free throw line. Hicks accounted for five of the seven, with Johnson sinking a pair of freebies as well. Tarleton State scored 38 points in the second half, with 20 coming from the free throw line. Mpaka notched the first bucket from the floor for the Texans in the second half with 16 minutes left to bring the Texans within eight, 55-47.
Johnson scored a team-best 18 points in the second half, nearly half of the team's total. He scored nine of the Texans' next 11 points across the next four minutes of play. The only basket he didn't score during that time frame, he assisted Mpaka on an alley-oop. Johnson made a triple, a mid-range jumper and shot a perfect four-for-four from the line during the span.
Trailing 74-63 just past the midpoint of the second half, the Texans embarked on their biggest scoring run of the night. The squad rattled off the next six points to cut their deficit to five, 74-69 with 8:21 to go. All six points came from the line with the first coming from Hicks, the next three from Mpaka and the final pair from Johnson.
But, once again, the Mustangs took control and ended any comeback hopes for the Texans. SMU closed the final nine minutes on a 22-7 run, with the Purple and White connecting on just two shots from the floor in the final 10 minutes. Sigiscar lit up the rim for the second time of the night with a dunk in the final four minutes. Ultimately, the Mustangs took control and earned their first victory of the season, 96-76.
SMU won the turnover battle, 15-11 and the narrow battle of the boards, 31-30. The Texans outscored the Mustangs in bench points, 41-28. SMU shot 56.0 percent from the floor converting on 28-of-50 from the field. The Purple and White shot 39.2 percent from the field, 20-for-51. The two squads shot the same, 38.9 percent from three-point land, making seven each. Tarleton State held the advantage from the free throw line converting on 29 of 35, an 82.9 percent clip. The Mustangs shot 33-for-42, a 78.6 percent rate.
The Texans will continue its opening road trip with just a day of rest in between. Tarleton State will head to Baton Rouge, La. to take on LSU for the first meeting between the two programs. It will be the season opener for the Tigers with tip off slated at 7 p.m. on Wednesday night at the Maravich Center.
