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HCU at SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA
Houston Christian University plays the second leg of a four-game road swing when they hit Hammond to take on Southeastern Louisiana University on Monday night. The game pits two of the leagues hottest teams and marks the midway point of the conference slate. Tip-off is scheduled for 6 pm as the back-end of a doubleheader with the women.
HCU comes into Monday night's game winners of five of its last six games to improve to 9-11 overall and 6-3 in the Southland. SLU hits the court riding a six-game winning streak that has the Lions at 12-8 overall and likewise at 6-3 in league play, as the two schools are tied in third place along with Lamar and Northwestern State. The four-team logjam is just one game back of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, who sits alone in second place at 7-2 in the SLC.
After posting strong 3-1 homestand, HCU kicked off the road stretch with an 86-76 victory at University of New Orleans on Saturday night. The Huskies broke away from a tight-game with seven minutes to go and coasted to the finish line to pick up their first win at Lakefront Arena since 2016.
The Huskies overcame two dry spells in the first half, then used a 16-4 run in the second frame to turn a back-and-forth affair into the double-digit win. UNO took a 60-58 lead with 10 minutes to go and three minutes later tied things at 62, before
Trent Johnson's three-ball gave HCU the lead for good, 65-62 at the 7:04 mark. That shot preceded a one-man mission by
Bryson Dawkins, who scored 11 straight points to highlight the late game-deciding burst and give HCU a comfortable 76-64 lead with just over two minutes remaining.
Dawkins posted a career-high 28-points, going 11-20 from the floor and 5-6 from the line.
Elijah Brooks had 13 points, four boards and five assists while Johnson recorded second straight double-digit night with 11 points and career-high seven caroms, all coming on the offensive backboard.
Porter Bazil chipped in a career-high three triples to notch his first-ever double-figure game with 11 points.
HCU is led by first-year head coach
Craig Doty, who was hired as the ninth head coach in school history back in March as the program is now in its 59th season. Doty brings 12 years of head coaching experience to the HCU sidelines, having coached on the NJCAA, NAIA and NCAA Division II levels while capturing three national titles along the way.
Julian Mackey continues to pace the Huskies in scoring, sitting at 14.8 points, 15.1 per in conference play. The senior transfer, who had a career-best 32 at ULM, has seven 20-point efforts on the season and has eclipsed his career-high three times. He currently ranks fourth in the SLC in scoring and leads the league in free throw percentage, knocking down 80.2% from the charity stripe. He is shooting just under 40% from the arc in SLC play as well.
Bryson Dawkins upped his scoring average to 12.8 points overall to go with 4.7 rebounds. He now leads the Huskies in conference play at 15.4 points and is second with 6.4 boards in league action.
Elijah Brooks continues to check boxes, averaging 9.7 points, 4.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.3 steals per on the season.
Peyton Rogers leads the club in rebounding at 5.4 per night, a bump up to nearly seven carom per game in conference play.
Trent Johnson had his first career double-digit game against TAMUCC last Monday and followed it up with 11 at New Orleans, improving his scoring average to 6.1 points, while chipping in four boards, 1.5 assists and a team best 1.3 steals.
The gametime with SLU on Monday night got bumped to accommodate a change to the women's schedules around the league after the winter storm, snow and inclement weather around southeast Texas and Louisiana caused the postponement of last Thursday night's slate.
HCU and Southeastern have met 20 times with the Lions holding a 13-7 advantage in the overall ledger. SLU won in Houston and then again on a buzzer-beater in Hammond to complete a sweep of last year's pair of contests and take a 12-4 lead in the SLC meetings between the two schools.
The Lions have won six in a row for sixth-year head coach David Kiefer, most recently a convincing 86-63 rout of UIW in the University Center on Saturday afternoon. SLU is paced by Sam Hines Jr., a 6'6 senior guard who transferred from South Florida, who leads the Lions in scoring (16.4 ppg) and rebounding (6.5 rpg) and is second in assists (2.1 apg). 6'1 senior guard Jakevion Buckley averages 13.1 points and a team-high 4.1 assists per game after transferring to SLU following two seasons at conference foe Lamar. 6'10 junior post Brody Rowbury averages 7.5 points and 5.1 boards.
The Huskies have played 15 times on January 27 with a 5-10 overall mark. HCU last played on this date last year in a 79-75 loss in San Antonio to UIW and last won on this date two years ago in a 73-57 win in San Antonio over UIW.
HCU commences the second half of the league schedule with a tough bit of sledding travel-wise later this week. A trek to San Antonio on Saturday evening to face rival UIW for the second time this season will be followed by a quick return to Louisiana for a Monday night affair in
Thibodaux against Nicholls State University.
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