Lion MBB looking forward as regular season comes to an end

Tyler McDonough, Sports Editor
February 25, 2019

Willie Rooks looks upon the Field House on Senior Day | Joseph Miller

By Tyler McDonough | Sports Editor

The Texas A&M University-Commerce men’s basketball team concluded senior week as the Lions went 1-1 after defeating Eastern New Mexico on Thursday 87-78 and falling to No. 4 West Texas A&M on Saturday 81-69.

With the 87-78 victory over Eastern New Mexico, the Lions picked up their 20th win of the season. The win secured the second straight 20-win season for Head Coach Jaret Von Rosenberg.

Box Score:

 
## Player GS MIN FG 3PT FT ORB-DRB REB PF A TO BLK STL PTS
10 Rooks,Willie * 35 7-18 3-9 2-4 3-4 7 3 2 3 1 2 19
2 Conrod,Trey * 30 5-9 4-6 4-6 1-4 5 2 4 2 1 0 18
4 Budimir,Srdan * 27 4-7 3-5 2-2 1-5 6 1 1 2 0 1 13
24 Brown,Rodney * 26 4-4 0-0 2-3 1-3 4 3 3 0 2 0 10
20 Tuttle,Carson * 38 3-7 2-6 0-0 0-1 1 3 10 5 0 2 8
12 Stewart,Wayne 17 4-9 0-1 2-3 1-5 6 4 0 0 0 1 10
21 Terrell,Deonta 26 4-7 1-2 0-0 1-3 4 1 3 4 0 2 9
55 Evans,Clarence 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
TM TEAM 0 0-0 0-0 0-0 1-1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0
TOTALS – 200 31-61 13-29 12-18 9-26 35 18 23 16 4 8 87

HEAD COACH JARET VON ROSENBERG AFTER THE GAME
– On the team’s second half performance: “That’s a really good Eastern team. They never went away and kept competing. We caught fire to start the second half. I credit our guys for making plays for each other. We got a couple stops. When you get stops and shoot the cover off the ball for five minutes, we were able to establish a lead that they weren’t able to come back from.”
– On the team’s rebounding effort: “We got rebounds from our guards. We did a good job of collectively rebounding. That’s what we always talk about. To beat them on both sides of the glass is a real credit to buying into the game plan. If that is lopsided, this game would have been a lot different.”
– On the team’s defensive effort: “Our defense leads to our offense. When we are taking the ball out of the net and teams can get set, it becomes a lot harder to be efficient offensively. When we are able to flow into offense after stops and long rebounds, we become that much harder to guard with the multiple skill guys we have on the floor.”
– On getting to the 20-win mark for the year: It’s a big deal for these guys to have consecutive 20-win seasons. We are just looking to build on that.”

On Saturday the Lions fell to the No. 4 West Texas A&M Buffaloes 81-69 at the Field House on Senior Day. With the loss the Lions fall to 20-6 and 12-4 in Lone Star Conference play. The Lions remain in second place, while the Buffaloes stay ahead in first at 27-3 and 16-1 in LSC play.

HEAD COACH JARET VON ROSENBERG AFTER THE GAME
– On the team’s play: “We did not play very well. Give them credit. But we just didn’t execute. We executed defensively a little bit but our offense wasn’t good enough to beat a really good team.”
– On WT’s run in the second half: “I think we did a good job in the half court defensively. We held them under 40 percent in the first half. But they went a little nuts in the second half. We went on a quick spurt of not doing well offensively and they took advantage of it.”

The game was the final at home for five seniors for the Lions.

Willie Rooks: Houston, TX

Reggie Reid: Harlem, GA.

Trey Conrod: Kilgore, TX

Vernon Lowndes: Charleston, SC

Srdan Budimir: Karadjordjevo, Serbia

 

Photos by Joseph Miller: