Terrence Johnson thought his team was locked in. The Bobcats had good practices all week long. They were revved up, ready to compete against Louisiana — ready to show that the overtime road loss to the Ragin’ Cajuns on Jan. 1 was a fluke.
They were prepared for success. They expected success. After all, they’d gone 7-1 in the six weeks since their last home game on Dec. 15.
But the interim head coach feels like he overlooked an important part in getting the team ready for Friday’s game against Louisiana.
“We give them all of these motivational talks. And then we don't talk about balance,” Johnson said. “We don't talk about when failure occurs, how do you respond to that? We don't talk about that it's going to happen, so prepare for it.”
Texas State was crushed under the pressure the players put on themselves. The hosts came out stiff and never loosened up enough to overcome their mistakes, falling to the Ragin’ Cajuns inside Strahan Arena, 62-60.
“There's a fine line between passion and emotion,” Johnson said. “You can't be passionate without emotions. But you can certainly be emotional without passion. We were just a tad bit too emotional today — a little bit tight. Living and dying with every mistake, with every shot, made or missed. Too up and down, too emotional, which is often the case when you put that amount of pressure on yourselves to perform at a high level.”
Louisiana (12-4, 6-3 Sun Belt) rosters the conference’s leading shot blocker in junior forward Theo Akwuba, which made good looks hard to come by near the rim. The Bobcats (11-5, 5-2) tried to counter by launching more attempts from outside, but the team went 0-11 on 3-pointers in the first half.
Redshirt sophomore forward Alonzo Sule proved to be the most effective option for the maroon and gold during the period, scoring eight points by taking advantage of his matchups in the post, but ran into foul trouble with six minutes left in the first. By halftime, Texas State trailed 31-24.
But entering the second half, the team seemed to have some things figured out. Sule scored inside with the team’s first possession. Senior guard Shelby Adams stole the ball on the other end and tossed it ahead to junior guard Caleb Asberry for a fastbreak dunk. The Bobcats forced another stop and senior forward Isiah Small drained the hosts’ first trey of the game to tie it up at 31-31. By the 14:34 mark, Texas State had its first lead of the game at 38-37.
But the visitors scored soon after and never fell behind again.
“Early on, we didn't see some going in, but we felt like the next one would,” Johnson said. “Pace matters against this team, shot selection matters and we just needed to settle down. We took better quality shots in the second half and we were able to knock down some. They didn't seem as rushed. So yeah, I'm OK with some of the looks, we just gotta settle down and knock them down.”
The maroon and gold began crashing the boards late in the second half. But despite grabbing 12 offensive rebounds in the period, the team only produced nine second-chance points.
A pair of triples from redshirt senior guard Marlin Davis cut the Cajuns’ lead down to 54-51 with 1:49 remaining. But Louisiana senior guard Cedric Russell answered back with a long-range shot of his own at the other end to make it a multiple-possession game again. The Bobcats played the foul game the rest of the way but the visitors made enough free throws to stay in front, handing the hosts a 62-60 loss.
“These guys wanted to do well, you know, they haven't been home in over a month,” Johnson said. “They wanted to do well. I mean, it happens. It's to be expected to a degree, but we have to do a better job of shaking back from it. I mean, we saw 18 more shots, that means we missed a whole lot of bunnies.
“We had some good looks, had some shots that we can live with. It's not like we came in here and dogged it and gave up a crapload of points to a very talented team. (The Ragin' Cajuns) did some really good things tonight. They play extremely hard … But this is way more about us than it is about them, respectfully.”
Mason Harrell led the team with 14 points, followed by Alonzo Sule with 11. Adams finished the night with a career-high 12 rebounds, seven of them coming on the offensive end. Texas State ended the game shooting 35.9% from the field, 19.0% from 3 and 62.5% from the free throw line.
Texas State will look to split the series on Saturday when they face Louisiana at home again at 4 p.m.
