The Bobcats showed efficiency at its finest.
Texas State (7-4) concluded its non-conference schedule at Strahan Arena with every available player scoring a bucket en route to a 117-65 win over Bethany College (5-8), the highest win margin of the team’s season. Senior guard Nijal Pearson exploded for a season-high 30 points, with a flawless 4-4 performance from beyond the arc in the first half. Pearson also made history again on Sunday evening bypassing former Bobcat Charles Spurlin for No. 13 on the all-time rebounding list with 624 for his career.
Sophomore guard Caleb Asberry got things started with a 3-pointer from the top of the key, which was immediately followed by a trey by Bethany sophomore guard Isiah Saenz from the right wing. The Bobcats began dumping the ball into the paint to one of the most efficient scorers in the Sun Belt Conference. Senior forward Eric Terry had his way all night with the bigs from Kansas. The big man recorded a career-high 20 points on 6-7 shooting from the field with an array of post ups and jump hooks, and even expanded his game outside the paint on an 18-foot jumper from the short corner. Once the inside game started working the floor became more spread out, allowing other players to get good looks in the win.
“It was good to get a victory after two losses,” head coach Danny Kaspar said. “We needed a win like this and we needed to get some people. Hopefully we got Eric Terry on track. It was good to see Nijal play so well and people like (redshirt junior guard) Marlin (Davis) play so well, also. A lot of people got to play a lot. (Freshman guard) Drew Tennial played a good game.”
Everyone took turns getting their fair share of looks throughout the first half. Davis was feeling it from midrange. He started 4-4 from the field and laid a nice wrap-around dime to lengthy junior forward Isiah Small, who flushed it with ease. Pearson started to heat up from outside soon after, hitting back-to-back 3s from the left side of the floor, including his last one with four seconds left in the half.
Pearson knows his scoring is a key asset to the team’s success but he doesn’t want this to be a one-time thing. It’s the consistency factor that the senior preaches is his goal every time he steps on the floor.
“I was just comfortable tonight. It’s long overdue. I played alright tonight, I just made some shots,” Pearson said. “This is who I feel like I am, how I played tonight. So I have to beat it every night. It’s not major, everyone keeps saying 30, but it’s cool. I need to do it next weekend and continue it after that into the conference. But it’s good timing though.”
The team shot 70 percent in the first half, the best start to a half this season. Only one player on the Bobcats shot less than 50 percent from the field.
Defensively, the team clamped down on the penetration from Bethany’s guards in the second half, outscoring the Swedes 62-29 in the final 20 minutes.
“We didn’t really do anything different,” Terry said. “We just told everyone, ‘Let’s get back to the basics and just rotate quicker.’ We didn’t really change up anything, we just have to emphasize defense and just lock down on that end.”
Texas State travels to Statesboro, Georgia for the start of conference play against Georgia Southern (6-4) on Dec. 19 at 6 p.m. Pearson is locked in for his run at a conference title in his senior year.
“It’s that time. It’s serious,” Pearson said. “We get the toughest road trip first so maybe we can get off to a jump start on everybody. Not to say games weren’t serious but it’s about to reach another level of intensity and play and how hard games are and how hard the games are to win. It’s extremely hard so we have to have extremely high focus and be extremely prepared for every single game and this is the first step. And I also hope we don’t lose any games before Christmas. That’s going to hurt my Christmas.”
