My old journalism professors used to tell us to “show, not tell” the story. So, to heed to their advice, allow me to SHOW you Texas State head coach Doug Davalos’ words before I offer any of my own.
Davalos on the flow of the game: “I thought we played well defensively and in the second half, defensively, we were a totally different team. In the second half, they’re playing defense without the coaches calling out screens and that really scared me today the way we approached defense.”
Davalos on the play of the reserves: “Look at their bench. Our bench to their bench, 28 to 26, these guys don’t play and they come in and it’s disheartening because you look at guys like Jordan Glenn — who’s a stud, Eric Bell — who is a really good point guard and they don’t do anything. Their bench — guys who don’t ever play, step up and play better than guys that play all the time for us.”
Davalos on the play of the reserves: “When we play 10 against their 10, our six through 10 have to be better than their six through 10 because that’s what we work on. They don’t. Their six through 10 is playing defense against their starters every day at practice and our six through 10 get reps. Our six through 10 have played, led us in scoring and played minutes. They have to be better than the other team’s 6 through 10. That’s our philosophy. Guys who don’t usually play (on other teams) have outplayed us. It makes you scratch your head.”
Davalos on the play of the reserves: Well, you certainly get the picture by now.
Texas State didn’t get any help from its bench tonight. The Bobcats only received solid contributions out of three players (Cameron Johnson, Emmanuel Bidias a Moute and Uriel Segura) while the other eight were basically non-existent.
Johnson bounced back from a slow first half to finish with another double-double (18 points and 12 rebounds). Moute didn’t play exceptionally well, but finished with 15 points, six rebounds and two blocks. Segura, who started to keep defensive heat off Ryan White, scored 16 points but did little else.
White did score eight points to lead the useless, but turned the ball over five times. J.B. Conley and Jonathan Sloan didn’t play a single minute in the second half while Dylan Hale and John Rybak were borderline invisible on the floor (0 for 5, 0 for 4 from 3-point range). John Bowman committed more fouls than he scored points in 22 minutes and Tony Bishop lacked any passion after shaking off a knee injury in the first half.
Turning point: There was a five-point swing at the end of the first half which gave the Lumberjacks the momentum. SFA guard Denzel Barnes knocked down two free throws to cut Texas State’s lead to 33-25 with less than 15 seconds remaining until halftime. The Bobcats called timeout in order to have the last shot, but White was whistled for a charge when he barreled recklessly into the lane 11 seconds later. White’s mistake gave SFA the ball and Barnes hit a long 3-pointer at the buzzer to bring the Lumberjacks within five.
Player of the Game: SFA guard Eddie Williams. He played 37 minutes Wednesday night and scored 20 points, grabbed six rebounds and dished four assists. Williams drew the charge on White that led to the momentum-changing 3-pointer by Barnes. Honorable mention: SFA forward Jereal Scott and Texas State forward Cameron Johnson.
Quotables
Davalos on starting Segura: “We put Uriel in there because he’s shooting 40 percent. Nobody else is even close. So we said, let’s put him on the two, next to Ryan (White), who is one of our best shooters and take the pressure off of him. He’s going to start again.”
Davalos musing on the game: “This is a game we could have won, but I’m not going to say we should have won. In the first half, things were going well and in the second half, we didn’t defend any more. This is a diamond offensively for us to shoot 44 percent. We hit enough shots, but we turned the ball over and we didn’t get shots.”
SFA head coach Danny Kaspar on the Bobcats’ play in the first half: “I thought they controlled the tempo of the game and if you let Texas State control the tempo on this floor, you’re going to lose.”
Kaspar on what he changed in the second half: “We did some soul searching and talking in the second half and we only committed four turnovers and shot the ball pretty well. A lot of players contributed.”
