the
Follow @HCUHoops
HCU at TAMUCC
Houston Christian University looks to right the ship as it finishes off a two-game trip south with a Monday night matchup with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Tip-off from American Bank Center is set for 7 pm as the Huskies look for a first-ever season sweep of the Islanders.
The Huskies fell to 11-15 overall and 8-6 in Southland play on Saturday, dropping a 76-52 decision to UTRGV down in the valley. The Vaqueros led from the start and an early defensive struggle between the two teams quickly changed, as the shorthanded Huskies could never get untracked offensively.
Bryson Dawkins' personal eight-point run got HCU to within one with just over a minute to play before intermission, but a pair of 8-0 runs by RGV to end the first half and start the second pushed its lead to 15 and the Vaqueros never looked back. Dawkins led the Huskies with 15 points while
Peyton Rogers scored 10 to go with eight boards.
Elijah Brooks made his return after a two- game absence to score six points and grab a career-best eight boards for HCU, which played without leading scorer
Julian Mackey for the first time this season.
With Saturday's loss and the other results in the league, HCU now sits in a tie with Northwestern State at 8-6, three games out of second place. League-leading McNeese remains the only team in the league to have clinched a berth in the postseason tournament, which they will host in Lake Charles, Louisiana from March 9-13.
HCU is led by first-year head coach
Craig Doty, who was hired as the ninth head coach in school history last 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 15.5 points on the campaign. The senior transfer from the Peach State has eclipsed his career-high three times this year, and currently ranks fourth in the SLC in scoring and field goal percentage, third in three-point percentage and second from the free throw line at a 79.6 % clip for the season. Mackey averages 17 a game in SLC play.
Bryson Dawkins is now ninth in the league in scoring at 13.8 points and he ranks second on the club in rebounding, hauling in 4.8 per game. He is second on the club in conference scoring at 16.4, and along with Mackey still ranks as the third-highest scoring duo in the Southland.
Elijah Brooks, who sat out the second half at Nicholls and the following two games after, sits on 9.4 points, 4.1 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.2 steals per game on the season.
D'Aundre Samuels has filled in admirably, earning three straight starting nods in place of Brooks and now Mackey, bumping his season averages 7.2 points, 2.8 rebounds and 1.6 assists on the season.
HCU and University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley have met 28 times all-time and this is the third different conference that the two will have squared off. The Huskies and then Pan American University were charter members of the Trans America Athletic Conference in 1979, and then 30 years later became league foes once again in the Great West Conference from 2009-13 when the Broncs were known as the University of Texas-Pan American.
The trip back up the coast brings a rematch with Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi at the American Bank Center. HCU has won just once at the ABC since joining the Southland, that coming on January 22, 2022 in a 77-71 victory. The two teams have now met 34 times overall with TAMUCC leading the series 23-11 after HCU's 76-72 victory nearly a month ago in Sharp Gymnasium.
The Huskies never trailed in that game, but had to weather a huge second-half storm as the Islanders cut a double-digit deficit to three points on four different occasisons in the final 1:25. The Huskies never wavered, going 9-12 from the free-throw line including 6-8 from
Elijah Brooks, to seal the victory. The Huskies put four players in double-digits in the game, led by Mackey with 19.
Jim Shaw is in his second season as head coach and fourth overall on the island. Entering the weekend the 'Ders had lost five of their last seven following a 6-1 start to league play, but are now 16-11 and 9-6 in the Southland following Saturday afternoon's wire-to-wire 69-55 victory at home over Incarnate Word.
TAMUCC leads the league in scoring at 77.6 points per game, led by 6'8 All-SLC forward Garry Clark, who is averaging 14.6 points and a team-high 7.7 boards. Freshman guard Isaac Williams scores 10.8 points and leads the team at 3.7 assists, while 6'8 junior forward Owen Dease chips in 10.s points and 4.7 boards.
February 17 has seen HCU play a total of 15 games with a 7-8 record. The Huskies last played on this date last season, falling on a buzzer-beating three-pointer at Southeastern 81-78. The last win came in 2006, when HCU routed then-rival Texas Wesleyan University 69-45 in Sharp Gym.
HCU will return to Sharp later this week for games on February 22 and 24. The Saturday afternoon tilt against Lamar will be the annual "Hustlin' Husky" throwback game followed by "Senior Night" against SFA the following Monday evening that closes out the home portion of the 2024-25 slate.
The final two games of the regular season take the Huskies to Northwestern State and East Texas A&M.
#DawgsUp
