Missed opportunity

By Cody Stark
Assistant Sports Editor

December 28, 2008 11:56 pm

— COLLEGE STATION — The things Sam Houston State didn’t need to happen Sunday night did and it was costly.
The Bearkats struggled through a poor-shooting performance and turned the ball over 20 times in a 60-50 setback to Texas A&M at Reed Arena. Sam Houston State (5-6) shot 33 percent from the floor and began the game 1-for-15 from 3-point land as the Aggies (11-1) snapped the Kats’ three-game winning streak.
Junior point guard Ashton Mitchell led the Bearkats with 16 points and senior guard DeLuis Ramirez added 10 and six boards. Junior forward Preston Brown chipped in nine points and senior forward Barkley Falkner led SHSU on the boards with eight rebounds.
“We were rushing shots and they played pretty good defense,” Bearkats head coach Bob Marlin said. “We didn’t make shots and we needed to make shots to stay in this game. Give them credit, they did a great job defensively.”
The Aggies got 11 points from junior center Chinemelu Elonu and sophomore guard B.J. Holmes to stretch their winning streak to seven games. Junior forward Bryan Davis also finished in double digits in scoring with 10 points.
Sam Houston State held Texas A&M’s leading scorer Josh Carter to three points on 1-for-4 shooting, but the difference came underneath the basket. The Aggies outscored the Bearkats 38-22 in the paint.
Sam Houston State trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half. The Kats cut it to 30-23 at the break only to see Texas A&M open the second period with back-to-back putback dunks by Davis and Elonu to push the advantage to 34-23.
After Brown hit a jumper to make it a nine-point game with 17:49 to go, the Aggies caught a break when Mitchell was called for a charge while converting a layup that could have cut the lead to seven. But Texas A&M came back down the court and got a pair of free throws from junior guard Derrick Roland to go up 36-25 and never led by less than 10 points the rest of the way.
“I think that (charge call) was definitely a big momentum change, but I can’t worry about that,” Mitchell said. “I just have to focus on playing. I kind of got out the game a little bit, but I had to stay in there for my team. But that foul really did hurt because I ended up fouling out the game.”
Texas A&M went up 17 points at 50-33 on consecutive baskets by Holmes and Davis with 6:40 left in the contest. Sam Houston State finally started to knock down some 3-pointers after that. Sophomore guard Josten Crow hit a trey to cut it to 52-38 then Mitchell drilled back-to-back 3s to make it 55-44 with three minutes remaining.
But the Bearkats couldn’t get any closer until freshman Drae Murray hit a 3-pointer with 32 seconds left to make it 60-50. Sam Houston State finished the contest 5-of-21, or 24 percent, from behind the arc.
“The game was there for the taking but we just couldn’t get over the hump,” Ramirez said. “We played good defense, but we couldn’t get over the hump. We couldn’t get any big baskets and we couldn’t get any breaks. They are a good team, but we just need to come back and go back at it on Tuesday.”
Sam Houston State only has one day to bounce back before returning to the court. The Bearkats host Northwest Oklahoma on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in their final nonconference home game before Southland Conference action begins Jan. 10 at Stephen F. Austin.

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