HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Gino Littles neared a double-double with a season-high 15 points and a career-best eight rebounds, but Austin Loop paced five Marshall players in double figures with 18 points to lead the Thundering Herd to a 92-71 victory on Thursday night at the Cam Henderson Center.
Littles scored 10 of his 15 points in the second half for the Roadrunners (9-11, 4-3 C-USA), who also neared a season high with 54 rebounds. Jeff Beverly added 15 points, while Byron Frohnen also just missed out on a double-double with 12 points and nine boards. Fellow freshman Mitar Stanojevic reached double figures for the first time in his career with 10 points, going 5-for-5 from the floor, all in the second half.
UTSA totaled 48 points in the paint and turned 20 offensive rebounds into 20 second-chance points.
Meanwhile, Loop did all of his damage behind the arc with six triples to pace the Thundering Herd (13-8, 6-1 C-USA), who won their 12th consecutive home game. Stevie Browning added 13 points, while Ryan Taylor and John Elmore each contributed a dozen and Ajdin Penava chipped in with 10 points.
Elmore, the league's leading scorer, totaled 10 assists for his fifth double-double of the campaign.
Marshall shot 47.1 percent for the contest, including an even 50 percent in the second half.
Marshall started fast with the game's first 10 points before UTSA could get on the board. The Roadrunners would score the next five to cut the deficit in half, but Loop put a stop to the UTSA spurt with back-to-back 3-pointers as four of the Thundering Herd's first seven baskets came from behind the arc.
The treys were part of a 13-4 spurt that gave Marshall a 23-9 lead and the home squad would keep a double-digit advantage the rest of the half.
Littles had a hand in seven consecutive points for UTSA when he scored five and then found Lucas O'Brien inside for a layup. Beverly began to heat up toward the end of the period as the junior connected on the team's final three buckets, but the Roadrunners could not get enough stops on the defensive end and trailed 45-24 at halftime.
UTSA made its first three shots of the second half, two of which came from Frohnen, but the Thundering Herd erased thoughts of a Roadrunners comeback with a 16-2 run that gave the home squad its largest advantage of the night at 62-32.
J.R. Harris ended the run with a 3-pointer, which was UTSA's first of the night, to start a 10-2 run that included baskets by Frohnen and Stanojevic. However, the Roadrunners could not get the deficit below 20 points as the teams mostly traded baskets for the final 10 minutes.
Littles and Stanojevic each scored in the final 10 seconds to bring knot the second-half totals of the teams at 47, as the Thundering Herd claimed the 92-71 win.
UTSA will close its three-game road trip at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 28 when it will face WKU (9-11, 3-4 C-USA) at E.A. Diddle Arena.
