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KATY, Texas – In a game that saw 11 lead changes and six ties, UIW took the last lead change with less than eight minutes to go and held off the HBU men's basketball team, 60-50, on Saturday at the Merrell Center in the Southland Conference Tip-Off Event.
 
The start the game, HBU (4-9) took a pair of four-point leads before UIW (4-13) evened things up at 9-9 and eventually built up to a 20-15 lead with 7:56 on the clock. Za-Ontay Boothman answered with a three and then Brycen Long scored the next five for a 23-20 Huskies lead at the 4:39 mark. The teams swapped leads over the final few minutes of the half with UIW leading, 30-27, at the intermission.
 
HBU scored the first four points of the second half to go up by one before the Cardinals came right back to score the next seven for a 37-31 advantage a little less than five minutes in. The Huskies then answered with a seven-point run of their own to go up 38-37. With 9:23 left on the clock, HBU went ahead 44-40 on a Darius Lee layup but UIW scored the next nine and out-rebounded the Huskies 11-4 over the final 8:28 of the game, holding off the Huskies the rest of the way.
 
Zion Tordoff led the Huskies with 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting and pulled down five rebounds while also dishing out a team-best four assists. Freshman Deshon Proctor scored 10 points and a team-high seven rebounds, connecting on 4-of-5 shooting. Jade Tse and Lee both scored nine.
 
The Huskies shot 37.3 percent (19-of-51) from the field and were 9-of-11 (81.8 percent) from the foul line. HBU won the overall rebounding battle, 34-30, but committed 12 turnovers to UIW's eight.
 
Southland Conference play begins for the Huskies next Saturday, Jan. 15, with a trip to Lake Charles, La. to take on the McNeese Cowboys at 4:00 p.m.