In their first meeting in nearly a decade, longtime rivals Texas State and Sam Houston State continued their almost 100-year-old rivalry as the Bobcats fell to the Bearkats 69-62 on Saturday.
As expected, the game between the former Lone Star and Southland Conference rivals was a battle from tipoff as head coach Terrence Johnson was proud of his team’s response after the disappointing loss to Mary Hardin-Baylor on Tuesday.
“It was a high level intense game,” Johnson said. “That is a well coached team right there … I’m proud of the way our guys responded from the other night. They played hard and I thought they tried to play together. We just ran into a better team tonight.”
What turned out to be a back breaker for Texas State was turnovers as the Bearkats scored 25 points off of 15 turnovers by the Bobcats in a seven-point loss.
As Sam Houston’s defense pressure wreaked havoc on the Bobcat offense, Johnson noted that playing against high-level defensive pressure will be a regular occurrence come Sun Belt conference play.
“That is a team when playing where you cannot beat yourselves,” Johnson said. “We had 15 turnovers and [Sam Houston] scored 25 points off of that. That is beating ourselves. Their pressure is something we are going to see in conference play. So we need to be able to adjust to that quickly with conference play around the corner. We took some steps and showed some signs but we still have a ways to go.”
One of the bright notes of the Bobcat’s loss was the play of graduate senior forward Nighael Ceaser and junior forward Nate Martin.
Caesar finished the game with his second double-double of the season with 19 points and 13 rebounds, a career high while Martin finished with 12 points and seven rebounds.
“Those guys are our veterans.” Johnson said. “We are going to lean on those guys. I felt like we had an advantage down low and I felt like we stuck with the game plan of trying to get the ball to them there early and often … what we have to continue to do is to figure out a way to have a balanced scoring attack. If we can do that I like our chances. Outside of the UTSA game, we have shown we can score the ball on the block.”
The main focus for Johnson and the Bobcats heading into this week’s game and conference play is to focus on the little things.
“We have to figure out a way to take something away from tonight,” Johnson said. “The message is that you can play as hard as you can and still lose a basketball game. That’s the reality of it. But if you played a little bit smarter, were a little bit more physical at the point of attack, and took care of the ball a little bit while continuing to play hard, you are not going to lose too many basketball games.”
“Now it’s about can we get one day better,” Johnson continued. “Can we do the little things that make such a big difference in the game that doesn’t necessarily seem like it but it absolutely does. If we can do that, we can end non-conference play on a good note.”
Texas State ends its non-conference slate against the University of the Science & Arts Drovers Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Strahan Arena in San Marcos.
