Feb. 6, 2013

Current Lamar Game Notes

CORPUS CHRISTI - Lamar University will look to put an end to its 10-game slide, and pick up its first Southland Conference men's basketball win this season, when the Cardinals take on Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Thursday evening.

Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. from American Bank Center. The game can be heard live in Beaumont on KLVI 560 AM with Dave Hofferth providing the play-by-play.

Lamar is coming off a solid effort in its last outing, a 65-51 loss to league leader Stephen F. Austin on Saturday. The Cardinals trailed just 27-24 at the half and committed 13 turnovers in the game.

Unfortunately, the outcome was the same as it had been in the first nine Southland Conference games of the season. The loss dropped the Cardinals to 2-20 on the year and 0-10 in league action. The Islanders are 2-17 overall and 1-8 in the Southland with the lone win coming by a 62-56 score over Lamar on Jan. 12.

In the first meeting, the Islanders led 31-20 at the half before Lamar opened the second half on an 11-2 run to pull within a bucket at 33-31. AMCC scored the next 11 points to push its lead back to double-digits and the Cards couldn't finish the comeback despite shooting 56.5 percent from the floor in the second half.

Senior guard Donley Minor led a trio of double-digit scorers for Lamar with 13 points, four assists and two steals. Stan Brown finished with 12 points and seven rebounds and Donnell Minton came off the bench to add 12 points and five rebounds.

Sophomore guard Johnathan Jordan posted a double-double for the Islanders with 15 points and 11 assists. Junior forward Will Nelson added 13 points and a game-high nine boards on the night.

The win was the Islanders' fifth in the last seven meetings with Lamar and cut the Cardinals' series lead to 15-5 through the first 20 games. Lamar, which won 74-58 in the American Bank Center last year, holds a 6-2 series advantage in Corpus Christi.

The two teams are evenly matched offensively with AMCC averaging just over 59 points per game and the Cardinals scoring 58.4 per outing. Lamar is shooting 41.0 percent from the floor as a team and the Islanders are at 38.2 percent.

While neither team is shooting particularly well from the field, AMCC is second in the Southland in free throw percentage at 69.7 percent and the Cards are third at 67.7 percent. Lamar is grabbing 4.5 more rebounds per game than the Islanders, and the Cards rank third in the Southland in blocked shots at 4.3 per game.

Brown, who is averaging 14.2 points and 8.4 rebounds per game over his last five outings, has been the most consistent player this year for the Cardinals. The senior forward scored a career-high 28 points last Thursday against Northwestern State and is averaging 10.8 points and 6.9 rebounds per game on the season.

Rhon Mitchell is posting averages of 9.7 points and 4.6 rebounds per game for the Cards. Junior forward Amos Wilson is coming off a 13-point effort against SFA and leads the team with 1.4 steals per game.

The Islanders have two of the top 12 scorers in the Southland Conference in Nelson and Jordan. Nelson leads the team at 13.6 points per game, and is also pulling down a team-high 7.7 rebounds per game to rank fifth in the league. Jordan is adding 13.1 points per game and his 4.9 assists per game are third best in the conference.

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