CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – In a dog fight from start to finish, the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi men's basketball team had their tying three-pointer fall just miss the mark as the final tip-in brought them to just a 74-73 loss to McNeese Monday night in the American Bank Center.
It was a commendable battle between the top two teams in the Southland Conference, with the game featured 15 lead changes through 40 minutes of play. While the Islanders (14-8, 7-3 SLC) worked themselves up by two at the half, McNeese (16-5, 10-0 SLC) scraped together just enough of an edge in the second and despite the home squad getting the tying three-pointer off in time, they had to settle for the two-point putback at the buzzer to come up a point short.
The game seemed separated by a three-point shooting contest and although the Islanders held strong with eight of their own from downtown, the Cowboys shot 52.2 percent from long-range with 12 made threes. The Islanders competed in the paint, however, where they outscored McNeese 32-26 and outrebounded them 38-33 including 13-7 on the offensive board.
Redshirt junior
Owen Dease got the night started with the three-pointer out of the gates after the Islanders won the tip. The steal from freshman
Isaac Williams led to a second chance opportunity for senior
Garry Clark as the Cowboys didn't get on the board until nearly three minutes in with a pair of free throws. However, there first three field goals would all come from downtown as a battled ensued early.
After getting down four, the Islanders responded by scoring on back-to-back possessions to tie things up at 17. McNeese would again find a look for three but this time it was covered by the long-range shot from senior
Jordan Roberts as it was the Islanders' turn to make three consecutive threes with senior
Dian Wright-Forde connecting from deep before Roberts nailed one again to go up 26-24. McNeese would tie it up at 35 but Dease got up for the dunk with under a minute to go for the 37-35 lead at the half.
A 10-1 scoring run by McNeese had them start the second half ahead 45-38 but Clark and Roberts made quick work of erasing the deficit with a sequence of a putback, the steal and score, and the deep ball from Roberts to knot the game back up.
From there, each squad had to climb out of five-point holes to find themselves tied up once more at 69-all with 3:04 to go. Unfortunately for the Islanders, McNeese was the one to break the deadlock to go up 74-70 with just 56 seconds remaining. With a chance at the line down 74-71, the intentional missed free throw sent the Islanders back to the three-point arc for a chance to tie but it missed the mark as Dease at least got up for the last bucket to fall short by just one.
Roberts seemed best fit to combat McNeese's three-point attack as he went 5-for-7 from beyond the arc himself to end tied as game-leader with 22 points. The other player to score that much was fellow teammate Clark who came away with the 22-point, 14-rebound stat line after reaching a double-double in the first half alone.
Dease also notched the double-double with 14 points and 10 boards. It is the first time since the 2022-23 season that the Islanders had two players come away with a double-double in the same game.
The Islanders continue to sit in second place with the first half of conference play drawing to a close tonight. They will start the second half on the road for two weeks, first making a trip to UTRGV Saturday before taking on East Texas A&M for the first and lone time this season next Monday.
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