ALPINE, Texas – Trailing from the opening bucket, East Texas Baptist University never had a chance to get their offense flowing as Louisiana College held the Tigers to a season low in scoring, 56-44. ETBU finishes with 21 wins and now will wait to see if they will receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament as they were seventh in the region in the latest rankings.
No player scored in double figures for ETBU as Bret Atkins had eight points to lead the team. Dylan Augustine and Jordan Quillian each had seven points. Anthony Gaines, Jr., led all scorers for Louisiana College tallying 20 points.
Louisiana College's defense held ETBU to just 44 points and a low of 28 percent shooting from the floor and three-point range. The Wildcats finished shooting 36 percent from the floor and 40 percent from the arc. ETBU did take the rebounding battle, 40-36.
It took almost six minutes before ETBU would score as Augustine hit the first shot of the game on a three-pointer at the 14:34 mark. Another three-pointer by Anthony Davis put ETBU within one, 7-6, just 30 seconds later and then a C.J. Sweet three-pointer tied the game at 14 with 10:20 to play in the first half. After almost two minutes of nobody making a shot, Louisiana College went on a 12-2 run over seven minutes to finish the half with a 12-point lead, 28-16, going to the locker room.
The lead made it to 15-points for Louisiana College to start the second half within the first minute, 31-16. Louisiana College would keep the lead a 10 for most of the half. ETBU brought the lead down to six, twice, the last being at the 7:20 mark, 46-40, on two Quillian free throws. That is as close as ETBU would come to trying to get a lead in the game. ETBU made a bucket at the 8:14 mark and then went seven minutes with making a shot from the floor until Sweet had a lay up at the 1:20 mark. Louisiana College maintained their lead during that time and went on for the 12-point win to advance to the championship game.
ETBU had four seniors on the team in Junior Mitchell, Eric Horton, Bret Atkins, and Anthony Davis. All four were members of the 2014-15 team that went to the Elite Eight and won the American Southwest Conference last year. In two years, these players have won 42 games, won 31 out of their last 32 games in Ornelas Gym, produced a program best 11-game winning streak this year in the NCAA Division III era, and earlier in the season had the NCAA Division III longest home winning streak at 26 games.
