COMMERCE— The Texas A&M University-Commerce men's basketball team will host conference foe Angelo State on Thursday. The Lions defeated the Rams by eight in overtime in January.
WHO: Texas A&M-Commerce (16-6, 8-5 LSC) vs. Angelo State (13-7, 5-7 LSC)
WHERE: The Field House in Commerce, Texas
WHEN: Thursday, Feb. 9 at 7:30 p.m.
LIVE STATS: http://statb.us/b/147047
LIVE VIDEO: https://portal.stretchinternet.com/tamucommerce/
LIVE AUDIO: www.ketr.org
TICKETS: http://lionathletics.com/sports/2016/11/18/2016-17-basketball-ticket-information.aspx
The Lions are coming off of a 72-65 loss to Eastern New Mexico on Saturday. The Lions trailed by 23 early in the second half but rallied to take a two-point lead late in the game before having it slip away.
"We've been in so many of those games before," said head coach
Sam Walker. "When we took a two-point lead, I thought we really had control of the game. We've played so many close games this year and we have come out on top in so many of them. That's the reason why we have a good record. I think we kind of used so much energy to erase that deficit that when it came down to the last two minutes, we just ran out of gas."
The Lions now turn their focus to Angelo State. The Lions defeated the Rams 97-89 in overtime back in January. While ASU has struggled in their conference season, Walker knows the team is still able to beat anybody in the conference.
"They are just coming off of a big home win against Midwestern," he said. "They are as talented as any team we have played all year. We will have our work cut out for us."
The Rams lead the Lone Star Conference in field goal defense and blocked shots. A&M-Commerce shot over 40 percent against ASU in their first matchup and Walker thinks it might take an even better effort to beat ASU in the second go-round.
"We avoided getting our shots blocked so many times against them to get the overtime win at their place," he said. "They are a very long athletic team. We are going to have to hit perimeter shots. When we have hit perimeter shots, we have won games and when we don't hit perimeter shots, we have found ourselves in the loss column."
The Rams sport the second leading scorer in the LSC in Quay King. Walker said he is a challenge to game plan for, especially with all the other talented players that are on the ASU team.
"He starts looking for where he is going to shoot the ball by the time he crosses midcourt," Walker said of King. "You've got to pick him up early. He's a very talented player. They have a lot of talented players. We've got to be prepared to play really good team defense. He is definitely one of the better scorers in our conference."
With five games remaining in the season, the Lions are entering the final push for seeding going into the conference tournament. When asked what his team needs to continue to improve on, Walker said his team needs to improve its consistency, because that's what it is going to take to win the conference tournament.
"We look at the teams in our league, it's funny because us and Tarleton are the only teams in the league who haven't had a two-game losing streak all season," he said. "It's kind of a phenomenal stat that eight of the ten teams at some point in time have done that. Some have had six-game winning streaks then lose two or three and then win five in a row. The league is so difficult, you don't know when a win streak is in front of you or a losing streak is ahead of you. We've managed to win, lose, win, lose, win here lately. It is a tough conference and you have to be ready to play every night."
