Roster | Schedule | News | Archives | Home

Feb. 6, 2010

Box Score

Canyon, Texas – West Texas A&M jumped to a 10-0 start Saturday evening, then held off second half rally by Eastern New Mexico to take a 67-49 win in front of 1,677 at the First United Bank Center in Canyon, Texas.

The win breaks a WTAMU four-game losing skid and improves their record to 12-10 overall, 3-4 in LSC South play, while ENMU falls to 8-13 overall, 3-4 LSC South. The two teams are now tied for fourth place in the LSC South standings.

The game was also the second meeting in four days between the two teams, as the ENMU took a 61-58 overtime win over the Buffs this past Wednesday.

“I thought we played much, much better, defensively tonight,” said WT head coach Rick Cooper. “Eastern New Mexico is a well-coached team and we had to work hard to do what we did tonight.

“We had some guys step up and make some big stops and hit some big shots. The most important stat tonight had to be the rebound totals for Bijan Dotson. He had three offensive boards, 11 total rebounds and only committed one turnover. For a post player, those are solid numbers.”

The Buffs scored the first the game’s first 10 points, with Joe Mincey accounting for seven of those tallies.

The Greyhounds' first points didn’t come until the 15:42 mark of the half when Equs Darby hit a pair of free throws.

A steal by Nick Burns, who fed Jacqueise Holcombe for an emphatic dunk upped the Buffs lead to 14-3 with 12:22 to play in the first half and forced ENMU head coach Andrew Helton to take a timeout. The Greyhound’s first field goal wouldn’t occur until Darby hit a short tip-in at the 9:36 mark, making the score 16-5. Until that point, ENMU had misfired on 15-consecutive field goal opportunities.

The Buffs held a 32-18 lead at the half, having held ENMU to just 18.8 percent shooting over the first half of play.

WT opened their largest lead of 16 points, 40-24, with 15:10 remaining, but the Greyhounds cut the margin to eight points, 41-33, on a 10-foot jumper by Jimmie Marshall with 11:55 to play in the second half.

A pair of Tyler Jefferson free throws closed the gap to just six points with 11 minutes on the clock before Burns canned a three-pointer to push the Buffs’ lead back to 44-35.

No sooner had the Buffs set up their defense then WT’s Chris Tucker fouled Tralyn Hardin in the midst of his shooting a long-range three-pointer. The shot fell, Hardin hit his free throw and WT’s lead was down to 44-39.

After ENMU had closed to within 54-47 with four minutes remaining, Mincey stole the ball at midcourt and fed LaDarius Hall for the lay-in to give the Buffs a nine-point margin with 3:51 to play. A pair of Hall free throws put the WT lead back to double-digits at 58-47 and from there the Buffs ran out the clock.

Defensively, the Buffs held ENMU to just 21.7 pct. shooting from the field, the lowest percentage allowed by WT thus far in 2009-10.

LaDarius Hall led the Buff scoring brigade, tallying 13 points, while Bijan Dotson registered his third double-double of the season, netting 12 points to go with 11 rebounds. Joe Mincey and Jacquiese Holcombe each added 11, while Nick Burns scored 10 points while dishing five assists.

The Buffs outrebounded ENMU by a 43-39 margin and hit 90.0 percent (20-22) from the free throw stripe.

The Greyhounds were led by the duo of Tralyn Hardin and Tyler Jefferson, who each tallied 12 points for the visiting team.

“We played very well tonight,” Cooper said. “I’m very proud of the effort and outcome of tonight’s game. Tonight, we saw that if the kids play hard on every possession and let the chips fall, sometimes something good happens.”

The Buffs host nationally-ranked Midwestern State, Wednesday, Feb. 10, at the First United Bank Center. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. CST.