Troy was too comfortable.
In its annual Kid’s Game on Thursday inside Strahan Arena, Texas State began with two turnovers and a missed shot from the paint. The visitors took advantage, scoring eight unanswered points in the opening two minutes of the contest.
Head coach Zenarae Antoine called timeout to talk things over with her team.
“I made them aware that (the Trojans) were shooting very comfortable shots,” Antoine said. “And to have an understanding for everyone that was new to playing them that the shot’s going up. It doesn’t matter. Now, if it’s uncomfortable, the probability goes down, even if it’s a high percentage shot. But if it’s comfortable, then that’s an issue. And we had to change that.”
The Bobcats made the adjustment and fought back, but could never get Troy out of its comfort zone. Texas State fell, 82-63.
“It’s just tough,” junior guard Brooke Holle said. “It’s always tough when you know you’re playing defense and you think you’re there or you think that your teammate’s rotating or they do and (the shooter) just hits a tough shot.”
Freshman guard Kennedy Taylor finally got the Bobcats on the board with a 3-pointer from the left wing out of the timeout. The hosts went on a 14-3 run to take their first lead of the game, but weren’t able to hold onto it. Holle scored 10 points in the first quarter, but the team trailed 23-20.
Senior guard Toshua Leavitt tied the game back up with a trey to begin the next period, but Trojan junior guard Harriet Winchester answered back on the other end with a 3 of her own. Troy -- the No. 3 team in the NCAA in rebounding margin -- played to its strengths, outrebounding the maroon and gold 11-7 during the quarter and took a 45-35 lead into the second half.
“We gave up way too many second chance opportunities,” Antoine said. “Those were easy, high-percentage shots. So, that’s where we lost the game.”
Texas State hacked away at the lead during the third quarter, cutting it down to six points with 18 seconds left on the clock. But Trojan junior guard Tyra Johnson sank a tightly-contested triple to go back up by nine just before the end of the period. It deflated the Bobcats.
“Sometimes when we think we’re there, we’re not all the way there, because they were just shooting lights out,” junior forward Jazza Johns said.
“That brings a team a lot of energy and when they started getting back in rhythm with their 3s and their offense,” Holle said. “They just built up the energy, it was just hard to compete with that.”
The visitors kept pushing in the fourth quarter and came away with the 82-63 win, snapping a four-game win streak for the hosts.
Troy shot 50 percent from deep against the maroon and gold, up from its season average of 31.6 percent. Texas State made just 25 percent of their shots behind the arc, down from their 32.7 percent average.
The Bobcats did continue their trend of at least three players scoring double-digit points, their seventh consecutive game to do so. Freshman guard Kennedy Taylor led the way with 16, followed by Holle with 12 and Leavitt and Johns with 11 each.
Texas State (13-15, 8-8 Sun Belt) will look to bounce back inside Strahan Arena on Saturday against South Alabama (19-6, 8-6) at 2 p.m. Antoine expects the team to be able to turn things around.
“For a lot of our newcomers, you just don’t know until you experience it, what I’m saying or what your teammates are telling you throughout practice,” Antoine said. “It was quite a shock to the system, I’ll tell you that.”
