Men's Basketball 1/4/2013 1:24:00 AM

Defense Dominates as TAMIU Rolls

Box Score

LAREDO, Texas (January 3) – The TAMIU men’s basketball was all about defense Thursday night, holding Oklahoma Panhandle State to just 42 points, a season best for the TAMIU defense, in a 79-42 rout at the TAMIU KCB. The Dustdevils held the Aggies to 29.2 percent shooting from the field, also a season best, and tied two season highs with 11 steals and 21 forced turnovers. The 37-point margin of victory was the second largest for the Dustdevils this season.

TAMIU simply outworked OPSU in the trenches, out-rebounding the Aggies 40-26 and outscoring the opposition 32-18 in the paint. The Dustdevils also got great contributions from their bench, who outscored the OPSU bench 32-13.

“Tonight was the first time this season our group played a 40 minute game,” said Head Coach Bryan Weakley. “It was encouraging but we still have a long way to go. If we can be disciplined and keep up this level of intensity for 40 minutes, we could cause a lot of problems for a lot of teams.”

Johnel Gray led the way for TAMIU scoring a game-high 16 points to go along with five rebounds and two assists. Matthew Culliver was extremely efficient attacking the basket, going 6-7 from the field with 15 points, seven boards, and five assists. Jayvin Reynolds led TAMIU on the glass finishing with a season-high 10 rebounds.

OPSU scored the opening two points of the game, but seven straight points from the Dustdevils aided by a Danny Rosas tre gave TAMIU an early 7-2 lead. Although TAMIU led by as many as eight in the early going, OPSU kept the game close. With just under 10 minutes remaining in the half the Dustdevils caught fire, hitting 6-7 shots over a nine minute stretch as part of a 15-0 run to take a 21-point lead. After two OPSU free throws, TAMIU closed the half on a 5-1 run to take a 42-18 lead into the half.

The Aggies opened the second half with three straight points and trimmed the lead down to 20 points off a three by Jared Messer. Culliver and Felipe Vezaro answered right back however, scoring four straight to push the lead back out to 24 points. The Dustdevils then put a halt to any hopes of a comeback, going on a 12-2 run over the next four minutes to take a dominant 62-30 lead. 28 points is as close as the Aggies would come the rest of the way as TAMIU continued to dominate, eventually pushing their lead out to 37 points by the time the final buzzer sounded.

The win brings TAMIU’s conference record back to .500 at 1-1, while their overall record improves to 6-4. The Dustdevils will face a much tougher contest this Saturday, when TAMIU hosts visiting UT-Permian Basin at 4 p.m. at the TAMIU KCB. The last time the Dustdevils and Falcons met, it was UTPB who was able to come away with a 49-47 overtime win in Laredo.

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