LaTech faces road challenge at SFA
RUSTON, La. — The Louisiana Tech men’s basketball team will travel to Nacogdoches, Texas, tonight to battle Stephen F. Austin at 6:30 p.m. inside the William R. Johnson Coliseum.
The game will be streamed live on the ESPN+ subscription streaming service and the Louisiana Tech X mobile application. Twitter users can follow @ LATechHoops for live in-game updates.
Hot Springs sophomore Exavian Christon is not expected to play. Christon has missed the last two games with an undisclosed injury.
Louisiana Tech (6-3) swepts its past two home games, including an 82-68 victory on Tuesday against Prairie View A&M (18), of the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The game was held on the 36-year anniversary of the first game Karl Malone and the Bulldogs ever played in the Thomas Assembly Center.
Leading the charge was the backcourt duo of junior DaQuan Bracey and senior Derric Jean, who both registered season highs in scoring with 22 and 17 points, respectively. They combined to hit eight 3-pointers in the contest.
Despite the Panthers’ high shooting percentages, the Bulldogs played one of its best defensive games of the season. They were able to force a season-high
20 turnovers, while also recording seven blocks and six steals.
Bracey was 9-for-15 from the field. After making just one
3-pointer in his first 12 attempts from deep this season, he connected on three triples against Prairie View, helping to up his scoring average to 10.1 points per game.
He is now one of five Bulldogs averaging double figures in scoring. Jean is not far behind with an average of 8.3 points per game. After averaging 4.8 points per game through the first five games, he is averaging 14 points over the last two games.
Lousiana Tech has outscored opponents by 58 points in the paint and the Bulldogs rank second in Conference USA with a plus-7.2 rebounding margin. They have the most total offensive boards in the conference with 115.
Stephen F. Austin (5-2) was
FAYETTEVILLE — If Daniel Gafford’s game vanished in thin air, presumably the Razorbacks vanish with him.
That was the consensus preseason presumption of coach Mike Anderson’s Arkansas Razorbacks basketball team returning only Gafford, the 6-11 sophomore Preseason first All-SEC center from El Dorado, semi-regular starting junior forward Adrio Bailey and sophomore reserve forward Gabe Osabuohien actively on scholarship from last season’s 23-12 team.
Well, it seemed Gafford’s firsthalf game against the Colorado State Rams did vanish in the nearly mile high 5,003 feet altitude Wednesday night at Fort Collins, Colo.
With the Razorbacks coming out shooting threes for a 12-2 opening lead, Gafford seldom touched the ball before being benched by two quick fouls with just two points on free throws for his first-half scoring.
Yet Arkansas led 44-33 at half. Gafford had 10 second-half points, just missing a double-double on his 12 points/9 rebounds night, supporting the team-leading 16 points by starting guard Mason Jones, and career-high 14 off-the-bench points by freshman guard Keyshawn Embery Simpson in Arkansas’ 98-74 victory at Colorado State.
That’s just part of Arkansas’ show on the Fort Collins road.
Starting freshman guard Isaiah Joe scored 14 points. Every game starter Bailey scored 10 with six boards and blocked two shots. Starting sophomore point guard Jalen Harris dished 12 assists against just two turnovers and scored eight.
Off an Arkansas bench outscoring the Rams reserves, 38-7, freshman forward Reggie Chaney, his 19 minutes just three less than Gafford’s 22, scored 11 points with eight boards while blocking two shots.
Freshman reserve guard Desi Sills of Jonesboro produced eight points and two assists in 16 minutes.
And in just nine minutes, sophomore reserve forward Osabuohien, “just a warrior out there,” Anderson asserted, produced five points and five rebounds.
So, no, Gafford said Thursday in Fayetteville just as he did after his 23 points were subordinate to Joe’s 34 in the preceding 121-89 victory over Florida International last Saturday at Bud Walton Arena, the Razorbacks don’t revolve around him and him alone. Far from it, he said, not with false modesty but sincerity.
Gafford said Anderson advises him to stay off Twitter but the sophomore confessed, “I saw a tweet about how this man said, ‘This is not just a Daniel Gafford team.’ I agree with him. This is not just me on this team. We have a whole list of players that are capable of doing a lot of great things here at Arkansas. Going down the stretch, every single one of the players on this roster are going to show people great things.”
Seems most did Wednesday night alone.
It was asked if the Hogs coming out nailing threes without Gafford touching the ball early played into him opening not in rhythm and committing those two quick fouls.
“I really don’t even worry about getting the ball,” Gafford said Thursday as the Razorbacks prepared for their 2:30 p.m. Saturday game at Bud Walton Arena against Western Kentucky. “I just basically let the game try to come to me. I don’t try to go take it.”
When he sees teammates taking them and making them, Gafford willingly becomes helper and decoy more than scorer.
“With them making shots, that’s what they’re supposed to do,” Gafford said. “If they get the ball inside to me, then I’m going to find the person that’s hot. So if they were going to pass it to me then I was going to find the next shooter because them hitting those 3s in the beginning to where they were getting hot, that showed they were ready to come out and play.”
As for his limited first half minutes, Gafford said it wasn’t just foul trouble creating his time on the pine. His game really was vanishing in thin air.
“What also took me out of my game, the air was so thin up there,” Gafford said. “My chest, it was real heavy, so I had to get used to that gym a little bit more.”
Six Razorbacks reserves contributing 66 productive minutes, variously spelling starters Harris, Joe, Jones, Bailey and Gafford, periodically had to come up for thin air.
“They were gasping for air,” Anderson said. “Their chests were burning with that altitude. That’s the best our bench has played. It was important that those guys come in there and give Dan and Adrio and Jalen Harris and Mason and Isaiah, give them some rest.”
Gafford sure appears to need it. Charles Bassey, Western Kentucky’s 6-11 freshman center, is a McDonald’s All-American bringing a nearly double-double 13.8 and 9.6 scoring and rebounding averages against Gafford’s, 18.7 and 8.7.
“He’s a really good player,” Gafford said. “So I’m going to have to come out with my A-game and pretty much any other big that’s on our bench is going to come out and be ready to play against him.” picked as the favorite the win the Southland Conference title. The Lumberjacks won the conference tournament last season to make the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in the last five season.
Tonight’s game will be their first game back in the states after splitting two games in the Belfast Classic in Ireland. They lost, 7658, to San Francisco (8-1), but bounced back to defeat Milwaukee (2-6), 66-51.
Shannon Bogues and Kevon Harris lead Stephen F. Austin with 14.3 and 12.3 points per game, respectively. They have combined to score 40 percent of the team’s points after earning All-SLC Second-Team honors a season ago.
The Lumberjacks are 91-4 at home since the 2012-13 to boast th ebest home winning percentage in the country during that span. Only two of the four losses came during non-conference play.
Tonight’s game is the back half of a home-and-home series between the two schools. Stephen F. Austin won, 85-83, in Ruston last season on a game-winning bucket with five seconds left to end the Bulldogs’ 11-game home winning streak. The Lumberjacks lead the all-time series, 7-6.