SAN ANTONIO — UTSA scored 34 points off 25 Southeastern Oklahoma State turnovers and placed four players in double figures en route to a 92-81 win on Thursday night at the Convocation Center in its lone exhibition game.
J.R. Harris led all scorers with 21 points for the Roadrunners, who improved to 10-0 in exhibition play under 10th-year head coach Brooks Thompson. Christian Wilson added 18 points, five rebounds and four assists, while Lucas O’Brien neared a double-double with 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting and eight boards and Ryan Bowie chipped in 11 points.
UTSA, which will open its 35th season of play next Friday at Loyola (Chicago), shot 44.2 percent for the game and totaled 42 points in the paint.
Meanwhile, Tyler Lonzie and Nathan Jackson registered double-doubles of 19 points and 12 rebounds and 13 points and 11 boards, respectively, for the Savage Storm. Southeastern Oklahoma State shot 42.2 percent and got five of its eight 3-pointers from 7-footer John Bootz.
Gino Littles put UTSA on the board first and, following a Savage Storm basket, the Roadrunners defense forced seven consecutive missed shots. The Roadrunners’ press caused back-to-back turnovers that led to baskets from O’Brien and Bowie and the quick spurt forced Southeastern Oklahoma State to call timeout trailing 13-4.
While the Savage Storm offense struggled in the early minutes, UTSA connected on six of its first eight attempts and would finish the half shooting 51.4 percent (19-of-37).
The Roadrunners began to pull away thanks, in part, to miscues by the visitors. In all, the Savage Storm committed 15 turnovers that UTSA converted to 18 points in the first half. An O’Brien jumper with 5:32 to go in the period capped an 8-0 run for the home squad and gave the team its largest lead of the half, 37-19.
However, the Savage Storm began to heat up behind three treys from Bootz and a 12-2 run pulled Southeastern Oklahoma State within 39-31. Wilson helped stifle the rally with back-to-back 3-pointers of his own.
Bootz answered a Bowie triple with his third of the half to pull Southeastern Oklahoma State within 48-41 at halftime.
The teams traded points early on in the second half before the Roadrunners started to build on their lead with an 11-2 run. Austin Karrer started the stretch with a free throw and layup before an inside bucket from Wilson, free throws by Nick Billingsley and another layup from O’Brien pushed the lead to 59-45.
A 13-5 spurt minutes later was capped by a fast break basket from A.J. Cockrell that was set up by Wilson threading the needle with a pass. The layup gave UTSA its largest lead of the night at 77-57 with nine minutes to play.
The Savage Storm chipped away at the deficit, but it never cut the Roadrunners’ lead to single digits the rest of the way.
UTSA will open the regular season with a 7 p.m. contest at Loyola (Chicago) next Friday, Nov. 13 in a matchup that can be seen on ESPN3.