Bobcats equal ’15-16 win total
After winning both home games last Saturday and Monday, the Texas State men’s basketball team has already matched last year’s victory totals for the regular season and in conference with six games left.
The senior leadership of forward Kavin Gilder-Tilbury has helped propel the Bobcats (15-9, 8-4 Sun Belt) on their recent surge, especially offensively. He leads the team in scoring, averaging 16.3 points per game, and has scored at least 10 points in the past 13 games. And freshman guard Nijal Pearson also has been a force on offense — he’s the team’s No. 2 scorer, at 13.2 points — though he’s received the most praise for his perimeter defense.
Pearson “is not only, in my opinion, showing how good of a player he is at scoring points, but he’s also doing a pretty good job defensively,” Bobcats coach Danny Kaspar said. “For us to put a freshman on their best player speaks volumes.”
Texas State has been solid defensively, ranking 14th in the country in scoring defense, allowing only 62.5 points per game.
The Bobcats travel to Georgia for a two-game road trip this weekend, on Saturday against Georgia Southern (16-10, 9-4) and Monday at Georgia State (16-9, 9-4). Both opponents are in a three-way tie for second place in the Sun Belt along with Arkansas State (18-8, 9-4), with the Bobcats right behind them.
Women’s team wins four in a row: The men aren’t the only ones winning on the court; the women’s team (14-10, 9-4) is in fourth place in the Sun Belt and is on a four-game winning streak.
Last Saturday, the Bobcats took down conference-leading Arkansas-Little Rock 64-47 — the only conference loss so far for the Trojans (18-7, 12-1). On Thursday night, they beat Georgia State (10-15, 6-8) in Atlanta 62-51. The Bobcats will remain in Georgia for their next game — in Statesboro against Georgia Southern (11-14, 7-7).
Softball team wins four: Last weekend the softball team opened its season by hosting the Century Link Classic. After losing the first game to Abilene Christian, the Bobcats won their next four, beating Texas Tech (5-2), Iowa (2-4) and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (2-5) and then winning a rematch against ACU.
The Bobcats (4-2) are in Las Vegas this weekend for the Demarini Desert Classic. On Friday, they lost the first of their five games, falling 5-3 to BYU.
Baseball season opens: The baseball team opened Friday night against Purdue, the first of a four-game series with the Boilermakers. The Bobcats host Purdue twice Saturday and once more Sunday.
It’s just the second alltime series between the two schools; the Bobcats swept Purdue 3-0 in 2009. Texas State is coming off a 31-28 season; the Boilermakers were 10-44 in 2016.