Box Score
NEW ORLEANS, La. – The New Orleans Privateers men's basketball team (5-9, 2-4) fell victim to hot long range shooting down the stretch in a 77-70 loss to the Sam Houston State Bearkats (13-5, 5-1) on Saturday at Lakefront Arena.
Sam Houston State made seven triples in the second half out of ten attempts after trailing at halftime. It was a drastic turn from the first half where the Bearkats only made two-of-ten shots from beyond the arc.
New Orleans got a corner three from
James Harrison to go ahead 56-55 with 6:56 left. Sam Houston St. then forced two key turnovers that led to five points as part of a 10-0 run that gave the Bearkats a nine-point lead. From there, the Privateers did not get closer than six.
"You've got to limit your runs. You can't have back-to-back bad plays. I think we had a couple breakdowns where it ended up being two or three, but we've gotten much better at that over the course of the year when you look at body of work," said Coach
Mark Slessinger.
The game was a back-and-forth affair that saw the score tied eight times, and the lead change hands nine times in the first half. In all, the lead changed hands 14 times before the Bearkats went on the game-deciding run.
Even though the Privateers fell short in the game, Coach Slessinger still took positives from the contest. "I'm really proud of our team's progress within a week and where we're at right now is a huge leap forward. It's not acceptable we lost the game. We're not happy about it, but we know we're way better and a lot of it has to do with our senior leadership."
Trailing 26-23 with 6:07 remaining in the first half, the Privateers went on their first big run of the game. They rattled off the next 10 points to push ahead by seven. The Bearkats were held without a point for a five-minute stretch, but closed by scoring the last five points to cut the New Orleans lead to 33-31 entering the halftime break.
The Privateers fell behind from before the opening tip after being assessed a technical for dunking in pre-game warm ups. Kaheem Ransom stepped to the line, and hit both free throws to put the Bearkats up 2-0 before the game started. New Orleans played from behind for the first eight minutes of the game before grabbing their first lead on an
Isaac Mack corner triple with 11:49 left in the first half. The Privateers trailed by as many as six before grabbing their first advantage.
Four Privateers scored in double-figures in a balanced offensive effort. The Privateers were led by
Tradarrius McPhearson's 16 points. Mack,
Cory Dixon, and
Kevin Hill contributed 10 points each, and
James Harrison added nine.
Ransom led the Bearkats with 21 points. Jabari Peters, Dakari Henderson, and Michael Holyfield added 10 points each. Sam Houston St. wound up hitting 52.3 percent of their shots on the evening (23-of-44).
The Privateers next hit the road to take on Houston Baptist on Thursday, Jan. 23.
