HOUSTON – The HCU men's basketball team rebounded from its Thursday loss at Lamar by rolling to a dominant 93-74 win over the Cardinals on Saturday night in Sharp Gym.
The Huskies (9-19, 6-9) led for more than 38 minutes of gametime and led by at least 10 for the final 13 minutes. Senior
Maks Klanjscek continued his recent hot streak, setting a new career-high with 33 points on 10-of-19 shooting. He was 9-of-10 from the foul line and 4-of-10 from three-point range. Junior
Brycen Long added 22 points, hitting 4-of-7 from three and 8-of-13 from the floor while also pulling down a career-best seven rebounds and dishing out five assists.
Bonke Maring just missed out on a double-double with 16 points and nine rebounds, hitting 6-of-7 from the field.
Deshon Proctor ended the game with eight points, six rebounds and a career-high four blocked shots off the bench.
Andrew King had six assists and five rebounds while
Zach Iyeyemi grabbed a season-high seven rebounds.
Lamar (9-19, 5-10 SLC) held its only lead of the night, 7-6, after a Chris Pryor jumper a few minutes in. HCU regained the lead on the next possession and a minute later, Lamar evened the score at 10-10. The Huskies then used an 11-4 run to take a 21-14 lead just over eight minutes into the game. The Cardinals worked their way back to a two-point game, 24-22, after a Jason Thirdkill dunk at the 6:16 mark. The Huskies had an answer, though, scoring the next seven points and ultimately taking a 37-28 lead into the half.
To start the second half, the Cardinals kept the HCU lead in single digits and with 14:07 left, the Huskies' lead was just four, 46-42. Over the ensuing four minutes, the Huskies out-scored the Cardinals 16-2 while scoring on seven of eight possessions to lead 62-44. The closest Lamar got the rest of the way was 16 with the Huskies' lead at one point reaching 27.
HCU was especially efficient in the second half, shooting 62.5 percent (20-of-32) from the field and 70 percent (7-of-10) from behind the arc. The Huskies shot 54 percent (34-of-63) for the night and made 36.4 percent (8-of-22) from three. The Huskies out-rebounded the Cardinals 42-34 and recorded a season-high 10 blocked shots.
The Huskies now stand in sixth place at 6-9 in the Southland Conference standings but just a game ahead of the four teams behind them who are all tied at 5-10 with three games left on the regular season schedule.
HCU hosts McNeese this coming Thursday, Feb. 23, at 7:00 p.m. in Sharp Gym.
