Junior guard Nijal Pearson hit five 3-point baskets en route to 25 points Wednesday night, pacing the Texas State Bobcats past the Rice Owls, 74-60, in San Marcos.
Texas State (6-1) has won four straight leading into a Saturday afternoon road game at UTSA.
In the game played at Strahan Arena, the Bobcats beat the Owls 40-30 on the boards and made 11 of 27 shots from beyond the arc.
Chris Mullins led the Owls (3-5) with 12 points and four steals.
Pearson, from Beaumont, will come into San Antonio leading Texas State in scoring at 21 points per game.
The 6-5 guard has scored a combined 58 points in his last two games, including 33 against in a 91-68 win at Portland on Saturday night in Oregon.
As a team, the Bobcats are limiting opponents to 57.7 points on 37 percent shooting.
Chalk up another victory over a power conference opponent for the Texas Southern Tigers.
Led by center Trayvon Reed’s 23 points, the Tigers downed the No. 18 Oregon Ducks, 89-84, late Monday night in Eugene.
“Trayvon did an excellent job,” Texas Southern coach Johnny Jones told the Associated Press. “It was his best game by far all year long. I thought he performed at a really good pace on both ends of the floor.
“Offensively, he was very effective, and he played with a lot of energy on the defensive end. I thought he had them uncomfortable at both.”
Houston-based Texas Southern (2-4) is no stranger to success.
Under former coach Mike Davis, the Tigers won six straight Southwestern Athletic Conference championships and qualified for four NCAA tournaments.
But this year, Texas Southern is winning in November against the name schools.
The Tigers opened the season with a three-point victory at Baylor. After the win at Oregon, it marked the first time since 2014-15 that they’ve won two games in a season against power programs.
Reed and guard John Jones, the coach’s son, led the way against the Ducks.
Battling against Oregon’s Bol Bol, Reed had his hands full, as the Ducks’ freshman produced 32 points and 11 rebounds.
But Reed held his own, connecting on 9-for-9 from the field — all on dunks. Jones hit four 3-point shots and scored 20.
Calling it a “big win,” coach Johnny Jones applauded the team effort.
“We played the 18th-ranked team in the country and a program that has been to the Final Four, and for us to leave here with a win speaks volumes as to how well these guys played tonight,” said Jones, who has coached previously at Memphis, North Texas and LSU.
Keaton Wallace drives on a defender in a Nov. 8 home game against St. Edward’s.
Jhivvan Jackson and Byron Frohnen scored 21 points apiece Monday night as UTSA rallied past Houston Baptist, 86-82.
Frohnen, a junior from Las Vegas, hit 10 of 12 shots from the floor, scored his career high and led the Roadrunners to their second straight victory.
Keaton Wallace had 20 points, eight rebounds and two steals for UTSA.
The game was played in Houston at Sharp Gym. Houston Baptist came in with confidence, having knocked off Wake Forest, 93-91, on the road last weekend.
Huskies guard Ian DuBose led the home team with 15 points, 10 rebounds and six assists.
Benjamin Uloko had 14 points on 6 of 9 shooting off the bench, and 6-10 center Edward Hardt scored 13 for HBU.
In a game that went back and forth all night, the Huskies led by six with six minutes left but couldn’t hold on against the Roadrunners, who scored a dozen points in a row to take charge.
Notable
UTSA hit its season-high in scoring, while shooting 46.8 percent from the field. Frohnen scored 13 in the first half. Jackson, in his fourth game back since returning from a knee injury, was limited to 20 minutes. He scored 15 points in the second half. Jackson has scored 21 in back-to-back games. Wallace hit four three-pointers, giving him eight in his last two.
Quotable
“A lot of these teams have to focus on these great shooters in Keaton and Jhivvan. That just opens up some lanes for me, and I took advantage of it tonight.” — Frohnen told the team’s radio broadcast on KTKR.
Records
UTSA: 2-5
Houston Baptist: 2-3
Coming up
Texas State at UTSA, Saturday, 3 p.m.
How it happened
Houston Baptist appeared to be on the verge of winning when Oliver Lynch-Daniels drove for a layup and a 72-66 lead for the Huskies with 5:45 left.
Not to be denied, the Roadrunners surged 12-0 over the next two minutes, with Jackson scoring the first eight in the run.
UTSA point guard Giovanni De Nicolao capped the streak when he sank a free throw for a 78-72 lead with 3:03 remaining.
At the end, DuBose drilled a three-pointer to pull the Huskies within two with 8 seconds left.
But Jackson was fouled on the inbounds, and he hit two free throws to account for the final points.
The Texas Longhorns and Texas Tech Red Raiders have moved into the Associated Press Top 25 in college basketball for the first time this season, according to the poll released Monday.
Texas (5-1) is ranked 17th after knocking off North Carolina by three points last week in Las Vegas. The Longhorns let a 19-point lead slip away the following day in falling to Michigan State.
Texas Tech (6-0) climbed into the No. 20 position following double-digit victories in Kansas City over Southern Cal and Nebraska. The Red Raiders followed on Saturday night by routing Northern Colorado, 93-63, in Lubbock.
The TCU Horned Frogs had been ranked in the first three polls of the new season but fell into the ‘others receiving votes’ category following a 73-64 loss to Lipscomb, (Tenn.) of the Atlantic Sun Conference.
Story time… Read all about how #TexasTech improved to 6-0 with a 31-point win over Northern Colorado on Saturday. #4To1
AP Top 25
Week 4
1. Gonzaga 6-0 West Coast
2. Kansas 5-0 Big 12
3. Duke 5-1 ACC
4. Virginia 6-0 ACC
5. Nevada 6-0 Mountain West
6. Tennessee 4-1 ACC
7. Michigan 6-0 Big Ten
8. Auburn 5-1 SEC
9. Michigan State 5-1 Big Ten
10. Kentucky 5-1 SEC
11. North Carolina 6-1 ACC
12. Kansas State 6-0 Big 12
13. Virginia Tech ACC 5-0
14. Iowa 5-0 Big Ten
15. Florida State 5-1 ACC
16. Ohio State 6-0 Big Ten
17. Texas 5-1 Big 12
18. Oregon 4-1 Pac 12
19. Purdue 5-1 Big Ten
20. Texas Tech 6-0 Big 12
21. Buffalo 5-0 Mid-American
22. Wisconsin 5-1 Big Ten
23. Villanova 5-2 Big East
24. Maryland 6-0 Big Ten
25. Mississippi State 4-1 SEC
Forward Rui Hachimura and Gonzaga leaped from third to No. 1 in the rankings after winning the Maui Invitational.
The Bulldogs capped the tournament with an 89-87 victory over previously top-ranked and undefeated Duke. In the new poll, Kansas of the Big 12 remained in second, while Duke tumbled to third.
Trailing by 19 points after nine minutes, the 11th-ranked Michigan State Spartans settled down and then roared from behind to beat the Texas Longhorns 78-68 Friday to win the championship in the Las Vegas Invitational.
Guards Joshua Langford and Cassius Winston led the comeback with a remarkable perimeter shooting display.
Langford scored 29 points and Winston added 20 points and 10 assists.
Combined, the two hit nine three-point baskets. The Spartans (5-1) erased what had been a 25-6 deficit.
The Longhorns (5-1) shot 34.4 percent from the field a night after they hit 52 percent in upsetting the seventh-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels.
UT guard Kerwin Roach II, who scored 32 on North Carolina, was held to 15 and 4 of 14 shooting. Forward Dylan Osetkowski and point guard Matt Coleman III had 13 points.
Guard Kerwin Roach soared for slams. He glided inside for floaters. He sank rainbow jumpers.
He did a little bit of everything in scoring a career-high 32 points as the unranked Texas Longhorns stunned No. 7 North Carolina, 92-89, Thursday night in Las Vegas.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Longhorn nation,” Roach told the FoxSports1 television audience. “This is for ya’ll.”
In defeating one of the blue-blood programs in college basketball, the Longhorns offset a team rebounding disadvantage (43-32) with season-high shooting of 52.5 percent from the field.
Texas also forced 17 North Carolina turnovers and turned them into 31 points.
Several players had key roles, including Matt Coleman III, Dylan Osetkowski and Jaxson Hayes, but Roach served as the maestro in orchestrating the Longhorns’ biggest victory of the season.
Roach filled up the boxscore with seven assists, six rebounds and four steals.
Furthermore, he shot 12 of 15 from the field to meet the challenge of negating a standout performance by North Carolina freshman guard Coby White, who scored 33.
North Carolina charged to a 17-4 lead, but Texas would not back down.
“We just stayed resilient,” Roach said on the FS1 broadcast. “We stayed within each other. We just played our game, and it came to us. We didn’t force anything. We played great defense and we played great offense.”
As a result, the Longhorns rallied to take a one-point lead at halftime and then extended it to 11 points in the second half.
The Tar Heels rallied to within two twice down the stretch, the last time when Nassir Little hit a three-pointer with four seconds left.
On the next possession, Longhorns guard Jase Febres was fouled and hit one of two free throws to account for the final score.
Texas deflected the ensuing inbounds pass on the last play, denying North Carolina a shot as the clocked ticked to 0:00.
Records
Texas 5-0
North Carolina 5-1
Coming up
Texas vs. Michigan State, at Las Vegas, 5:30 p.m.
Quotable
“(Roach) gave us everything he had tonight. At the four-minute media (timeout) I turned to our strength coach and said, ‘I hope he’s got four minutes left.’ Because he did look winded. But he’s really fought, battled, got himself in unbelievable shape. Obviously he was everything for us in terms of creating offense.” — Texas coach Shaka Smart. (Interview with FS1)
Notable
In the past 15 seasons under coach Roy Williams, North Carolina has won three national titles. The Tar Heels’ last championship came in 2017. They were knocked out in the round of 32 last year by Texas A&M. In three seasons under Smart, Texas has reached the NCAA tournament twice but hasn’t won an NCAA game. The Longhorns, despite what was then a career-best 26 points from Roach, were ousted by Nevada in the first round last year.
Northern Colorado guard Jordan Davis arrived at the McDermott Center Wednesday night billed as one of the top offensive threats in the Big Sky Conference.
Davis more than lived up to the hype with an all-around performance that lifted the Bears to a 90-64 victory over the Incarnate Word Cardinals.
With a quick first step, the nation’s 10th leading scorer made it tough on the Cardinals all night.
Not only did he produce 20 points on 7 of 12 shooting, he also grabbed five rebounds, passed for five assists and made four steals.
His drive and dunk over UIW’s Augustine Ene with four minutes remaining left a bystander behind the basket aghast, as he exclaimed, “Man, that was sick.”
(See video above).
Another Bears’ guard, Jonah Radebaugh, also hurt UIW with 20 points. Radebaugh nailed 5 of 6 three-point baskets.
Davis, 6-2, from Las Vegas, came in averaging 24.5 points.
“He’s really, really tough, really physical,” UIW coach Carson Cunningham said. “We knew he was a lot to deal with. I think he had 32 (points) on Pepperdine. We felt like he was going to present a major challenge for us. So we’re just going to keep battling.”
Davis seemed to turn up his intensity a few notches near the end of the game.
In a sequence of plays that lasted 71 seconds on clock, he drove down the lane for a layup (see video above), assisted on a layup for teammate Jalen Sanders and then threw down the dunk of the night.
“I definitely enjoy playing this pace, and making plays for my teammates,” Davis told The JB Replay. “I thought my teammates did a wonderful job of spacing the floor with screens and just getting me open.”
Records
Northern Colorado: 3-0
Incarnate Word: 4-4
UIW forward Christian Peevy drives to the basket for a field goal late in the first half Wednesday night.
Shooting a high percentage from the field, Northern Colorado surged into a 49-31 halftime lead.
The Bears opened on a 14-3 run in the first five minutes of the game. After UIW responded with a streak to trim the lead to 19-13, Northern Colorado surged again, scoring 13 of the next 16 points.
After the dust cleared, the Bears held a 32-16 lead. The visiting team didn’t look back, building the advantage to as many as 22 points. Long-distance shooting artist Bodie Hume led the way with 13 points, including three baskets from three-point territory, in the first half.
UIW enjoyed perhaps its best stretch of the game in the first four minutes after intermission. Christian Peevy scored seven points in a 14-3 run for the Cardinals that cut the lead to six points.
Notable
Peevy produced a season-high 26 points on 9 of 12 from the field and 8 of 9 at the free throw line. Guard Augustine Ene was 7 of 11 for 16 points.
Northern Colorado did a good job on two of UIW’s primary offensive weapons. Freshman guard Morgan Taylor was held to eight points on 3 of 11 shooting. Senior Charles Brown III was held scoreless on 0 for 5 from the floor.
UIW’s defense could use some work before its next game, set for Sunday at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville. The Bears shot 55.6 percent from the floor for the third-highest percentage against the Cardinals this year. Previously, the Montana Grizzlies shot 62 percent on UIW. Texas Tech shot 59.6 percent.
Local connection
Johnatan Reyes, a Northern Colorado sophomomre from Clark High School, contributed a rebound and an assist in 11 minutes off the bench. His biggest impact on the game may have been a large gathering of family, friends and supporters from the local area who were wearing ‘Northern Colorado’ shirts and cheering for the Bears.
UTSA’s Jhivvan Jackson shoots around before the Roadrunners’ game against Oklahoma on Nov. 12. – photo by Joe Alexander
Sophomore Jhivvan Jackson scored 21 points Wednesday as the UTSA Roadrunners won their first game of the season, downing Florida Gulf Coast, 76-65.
In a game for seventh place at the Gulf Coast Showcase in Estero, Florida, Keaton Wallace produced 19 points for the Roadrunners, who improved to 1-5.
Christian Carlyle led the Eagles with 16 points as Florida Gulf Coast dropped to 2-5.
UTSA entered the tournament in Florida coming off losses to Division II St. Edward’s and to Division I powers Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
Jackson, coming off knee surgery, did not play in any of the games as he completed his rehabilitation from ACL knee surgery.
Cleared to play before the road trip to Florida, he competed in all three games, with his playing time restricted to 15 minutes.
He scored 10 points in a 65-56 loss to UC Irvine and then had another 10 (on 2 of 11 shooting) in a 99-79 loss to South Dakota State.
Against Florida Gulf Coast, Jackson scored his season high on 7 of 15 shooting from the field and 5 of 10 from three-point range.
Wallace, also a sophomore, played well with 19 points, including four three-pointers.
Last year, Jackson and Wallace emerged as two of the keys in UTSA’s resurgence as a basketball program.
The Roadrunners produced a 20-15 record for their first 20-win season in seven years.
Notable
Florida Gulf Coast center Ricky Doyle played against his father’s alma mater. Doyle had 2 points, a rebound and an assist for the Eagles. His father is Rick Doyle, who was UTSA’s first great center. Doyle played for the Roadrunners from 1982-84. He teamed with Derrick Gervin to lead UTSA to its first 20-win season in 1983-84. Doyle was a fifth-round draft pick by the Detroit Pistons and went on to play professionally in France for 11 years. Ricky Doyle was born in Pau, France, in 1996. Rick was in the stands to watch the game, an FGCU spokesman said.
Quotable
“It was a good trip for us in terms of learning. (We played) three really good teams. Those three teams we played will all be the favorites in their conference. I told our guys just now I’m happy for them. We got the win. We’re making progress. I really liked the way they responded yesterday at halftime. You know, down, and came out and fought. Some good signs there.” — UTSA coach Steve Henson, on the team’s trip to Florida. (Interview on KTKR radio).
When forward Mike Daum wasn’t hitting shots from outside the three-point arc Tuesday morning, guard Skyler Flatten was getting open and firing from some other far-away location.
Daum and Flatten combined for 11 three-pointers and 69 points as the South Dakota State Jackrabbits rolled past UTSA, 99-79, at the Gulf Coast Showcase.
Daum, a 6-9 senior forward, finished with 41 points on 14 of 25 shooting. The NBA prospect hit 5 of 12 three-point baskets. Flatten added 28 points on 10 of 11 from the floor. He was 6 of 6 from three.
Bidding for their fourth-straight trip to the NCAA Tournament this season, the Jackrabbits (4-2) of the Summit League showed that they’re warming up to meet the challenge.
They built an eight-point lead at halftime and then continued to pull away from the Roadrunners (0-5), who will close out the tournament with a third game in three days Wednesday morning.
Guard Keaton Wallace led UTSA with 21 points. Nick Allen had 12 and Atem Bior 11. Jhivvan Jackson scored 10 in his second game back to the lineup after rehabilitation from a knee injury.
Notable
With his performance against UTSA, Daum became South Dakota State’s all-time leading scorer. He has scored 2,388 points to surpass Nate Wolters’ record of 2,363, set in four seasons through 2013. Daum has scored 156 points in six games for an average of 26 per game, which likely will boost him into the national top ten.
Quotable
“The way they use him, the way they get him in different spots, it wasn’t like he was going to the same spot (on the floor). We couldn’t really double him. We tried some different people on him but … every second or third trip down the floor he was scoring again. He’s a terrific player.” — UTSA coach Steve Henson on trying to defend Mike Daum, South Dakota State’s all-time scoring leader. (Interview on KTKR radio).
