KINGSVILLE, Texas – Junior Tre Flowers (Bryan, Texas) poured in 21 points and senior Rashon Thomas (Houston, Texas) added 18 as the Texas A&M-Kingsville men's basketball team scored a 70-65 triumph over the Dallas Baptist Patriots in Lone Star Conference action on Thursday night at the Steinke Physical Education Center in Kingsville, Texas.
This win, combined with losses by Angelo State and Lubbock Christian puts the Javelinas back at No. 3 in LSC and in control of their own destiny for a first-round bye in the conference tournament. The Javelinas improved to 19-8 overall, matching the highest win total for coach Johnny Estelle at TAMUK, and they're 15-6 in conference. DBU dropped in 13-8 in the LSC and 19-8 overall.
"We got back to sharing the ball a little bit," said Estelle. "We moved the ball around and got more movement. We lost last week and had to come back and recalibrate. [The players] really were focused. They wanted to get to the tournament and help our resume, so to speak. Coach Gonzalez did a good job preparing us for DBU."
"It was good to see us get out of our shooting slump a little bit. We kind of made it ugly, but I'll take an ugly win over a pretty loss any day."
For Flowers, this marked the fourth time in 2019-20 he topped 20 points and he did so by hitting 8-of-11 shots from the field, including 3-of-5 from beyond the arc. Thomas also put three in from deep and shot 5-of-9 overall. Senior John Mouton (Missouri City, Texas) led the Hogs on the glass with eight rebounds while contributing 11 points. Flowers, Thomas and senior Chauncey Thomas (Plano, Texas) handed out three assists.
"We wanted to come back show everybody we were better than we played last week," said Flowers. "We wanted to prove we're the same team that we've always been, so we went back to our roots. We got out in transition and got open shots. Chauncey [Thomas] and Creighton [Avery] did a great job pushing the ball up the floor and finding everybody."
A 4-0 start in favor of the Hogs was countered by five straight points for the Patriots and both teams proceeded to put together runs after that. A three courtesy of senior John Guerra (Melville, N.Y.) sparked the Javelinas to an 8-0 burst and a 12-5 lead, but DBU had an answer. They tallied the next 13 points, closing that stretch with consecutive treys to go ahead 18-12 with 8:44 before halftime, but that would be their largest lead of the night.
The Patriots kept their hosts at bay for much of the rest of the period, re-taking the lead four times after the Javs tied it. The last instance came with 15 seconds on the clock when Jonathyn Washington drained a free throw for a 29-28 edge, but Mouton came back with a buzzer-beating jumper and the home team headed to the break with a slim, 30-29 advantage.
For more than eight minutes in the second half, neither side led by more than four. DBU erased one of those four-point leads with two free throws, followed by a layup at the 13:37 mark, but Rashon Thomas responded by canning a triple and Flowers added one of his own soon after for a 47-41 advantage.
The Patriots got within one at 49-48 at the 8:42 mark, then tied the score with 6:27 left. A swift response from Thomas came in the form of another long-range bucket and, after the visitors had again climbed to within one, six straight TAMUK points put the score at 61-54 as the clock ticked under four minutes.
The Javelina lead grew to eight with less than two minutes to play, but DBU made one more push. A three-point play from Chandler Jacobs and a Carson Hughes trey sliced the visitors' deficit to two with the clock at 1:19. The teams spent the next 54 seconds trading free throws until a Javelina miss gave the Patriots the ball with 25 seconds left, down 68-65. An attempt to tie by Jacobs was just a little off, Dayante McClellan (Austin, Texas) grabbed the rebound and Creighton Avery (Corpus Christi, Texas) buried two free throws to seal the game.
The Javelinas' chance to notch their 20th win and clinch a first-round tournament bye will come on Saturday, when they face off against Tarleton at the SPEC at 4 p.m. Stay current with TAMUK men's basketball throughout the 2019-20 season by following @JavelinaMBB and @JavelinaSports on Twitter and Instagram, liking Javelina Men's Basketball on Facebook and subscribing to the Javelina Athletics YouTube Channel. Watch your Javelinas live today on the Javelina Sports Network sponsored by Mendoza's Pharmacy.
