Feb. 23, 2005
Contact: Rick Nixon, 210-458-4551
Lamar rallies for 88-83 victory over UTSA
Box Score
SAN ANTONIO - Trailing by 15 points in the second half, the Lamar Cardinals rallied for an 88-83 victory over the UTSA Roadrunners on Wednesday night at the UTSA Convocation Center.
Raymond Anthony and Thomas Fairley led the Cardinals with 19 points apiece, while Alan Daniels added 18. Lamar improved to 16-9 with the win, and are now 8-6 in Southland Conference play. The win moved the Cardinals past UTSA in the conference standings, with the Roadrunners falling into a tie for fifth place with a 7-6 conference record, 12-12 overall.
The Roadrunners placed four players in double figures as Andre Owens, Justin Harbert and John Millsap each totaled 17 points, while Rapheal Posey added 11. Millsap also pulled down 15 rebounds. Kurt Attaway tied a career-high with eight assists for UTSA.
UTSA scored the final 14 points of the first half and led 49-37 at halftime as Owens had 13 points in the opening 20 minutes.
After widening the lead to 54-39 on a basket by Millsap with 18:28 to play, UTSA went cold as Lamar rallied. The Cardinals used a 19-4 run to tie the score 58-58 on a tip-in by Nashid Beard with 13:14 remaining.
The Roadrunners answered with another 12-4 run and led 70-62 after another Millsap layup with 9:37 remaining.
Behind Anthony and Fairley, the Cardinals rallied to take the lead for good at 78-77 on a dunk by Fairley with 3:46 to play. Lamar widened the advantage to as many as eight points before UTSA was able to cut the lead to 86-83 with 12 seconds to play on a dunk by Ray Selvage.
Anthony connected on two free throws for the final margin with nine seconds left.
"We didn't handle their one-three-one zone very well in the second half and missed too many open shots," said UTSA coach Tim Carter. "Time and time again I thought we got good looks at the basket, we just couldn't make enough of our open shots. With us it always comes down to shooting the basketball, and tonight we didn't do a good enough job of it."
UTSA dominated the glass by a 61-45 margin over the Cardinals and connected on 34 of 82 (41.5%) shots from the field. The 61 rebounds was only two shy of the all-time UTSA school record.
The Roadrunners return to action this Saturday, Feb. 26 with the Homecoming Game tipping off at 6 p.m. in the Convocation Center against Texas-Arlington.