TYLER – The Texas A&M University-Commerce men's basketball team used an 11-point run in the second half to pull away and earn an 80-69 win over the University of Texas at Tyler on Saturday evening in the Herrington Patriot Center.
 
The Lions move to 5-3 overall and 2-1 in Lone Star Conference action, while the Patriots are now 3-5 overall and 0-3 in league action.
 
A&M-Commerce faces a quick turnaround, as the blue and gold will host No. 11 Missouri Southern at Noon on Monday for Education Day presented by Alliance Bank.
 
HEAD COACH JARET von ROSENBERG AFTER THE GAME
On overcoming a slow start: "It took us a minute to get settled into the game. I really liked every shot we got, and felt we got some good ones. When you start 1-of-10 from three and nine of them are really good shots… you don't change what you're doing, you've just got to step up and make the next one. We did a nice job of that tonight."
 
On withstanding an active UT Tyler: "Unlike other years we've had, we've got a solid 10-man rotation, and we can withstand that a little better than we could in the past. We're able to keep playing, hit shots, get stops, and you saw how it ended up for us."
 
On the play of Wayne Stewart: "He's earned that from what's he's done in practice. He's not always going to have that level of production on the stat sheet, but he's a mainstay. He did that in only 24 minutes, so he was really efficient. He made them pay whenever we could get the ball near the basket, and we were very efficient down there."
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
- The Lions shot 45.7 percent (32-of-70) from the floor, while limiting UT Tyler to 38.8 percent (26-of-67).
- Wayne Stewart (Philadelphia, Pa.) led all scorers with 25 points on 11-of-14 shooting, while also grabbing eight rebounds.
- Deonta Terrell (Chicago, Ill.) netted 21 points with eight rebounds and five assists.
- Deon Barrett (Lancaster) made five three-pointers on the way to a 16 points, four rebounds, five assists, and three steals.
- Darnell Wright (Chicago, Ill.) was a rebound shy of a double-double with 10 points, nine rebounds, and four assists.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
The early stages of the game went back-and-forth, as neither side was able to stretch their lead to more than one possession until the 13:33 mark, when UT Tyler's Ty Glover hit a free throw to put the home side up 14-10. That was part of a 14-point Patriot run that gave UTT its largest lead of the day at 23-12 with just under 10 minutes to play.
 
A pair of Stewart free throws started a quick rally that saw the Lions score 10 points in just over a minute. Alex Peavy (Smithson Valley) drilled a three-pointer and Stewart's corner triple at the 6:29 mark of the half tied the game up at 25-all.
 
The Patriots took a four-point lead with just over two minutes left in the half, then Barrett hit a long three-pointer to start a Lion run to end the half. The Lions scored the final six points of the period and took a 34-32 lead into the halftime break.
 
The early portion of the second half was tight before the Lions broke the game open. The lead for A&M-Commerce stood at 48-45 with 13:22 to go before TAMUC scored 10 straight points. Barrett hit a three, Terrell scored in the paint, and Alberto Moreno (Ingenio, Gran Canaria) hit a three-pointer and a fastbreak layup to cap a run over a span of less than two minutes with a 58-45 lead with 11:36 to go.
 
Another Lion run put any hopes of a comeback out of reach for the home side. The blue and gold netted 11 consecutive points on four Stewart layups and a deep Barrett trey to make it 69-48 with 8:15 to play.
 
A frenetic pace in the final minutes saw the Patriots narrow the deficit to 11 points in the final minute, but the Lions advantage was too much to overcome.