UTRGV Men's Basketball Falls at Tarleton

GoUTRGV.com STEPHENVILLE – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros men's basketball team was defeated by the Tarleton State University Texans 75-62 on Thursday at Wisdom Gym. Junior Justin Johnson paced the Vaqueros (7-21, 2-14 WAC) with 13 points and tallied five defensive rebounds and one steal. Sophomore Quinton Johnson II finished with 12 points and went 2-for-3 from the three-point line. Freshman RayQuan Taylor scored 10 points, recorded a team-high eight rebounds and one block. Graduate students Mike Adewunmi and Marek Nelson each scored eight. Montre Gipson and Freddy Hicks led the Texans (13-15, 8-7 WAC) with 22 and 20 points, respectively. The Texans jumped out to an early lead, but UTRGV got within three off a deep 3-pointer from Justin Johnson. Tarleton responded with an 8-0 run to go on top 16-5. Quinton Johnson ended a nearly four-minute scoring drought with a 3-pointer to spark a 6-0 Vaqueros scoring run to trim the deficit to five. Tarleton’s defense forced another scoring drought to extend its lead to 20-11 before a Marek Nelson free throw got UTRGV back on the board. Taylor recorded a clean-up dunk, showing his prowess on the rim, to keep the deficit in single digits. UTRGV was aggressive getting to the bucket to put Tarleton in foul trouble early. The Vaqueros went 6-for-9 at the charity stripe in the first half. But Tarleton’s defense forced 11 turnovers in the first half, helping it take a 31-18 lead. UTRGV went into the locker room at half trailing 42-22. Adewunmi turned in a strong second half, scoring all eight of his points in the final 20 minutes. He scored four consecutive points off a floater and a highlight-reel dunk to get things started for UTRGV. The Vaqueros went on a 5-0 run to cut the lead to 45-31. The two squads exchanged buckets as UTRGV continued to battle hard to chip away at the lead. Taylor helped the Vaqueros go on another 6-0 run as he nailed a floater through contact after an offensive rebound, then converted the free throw to make it 61-46. Taylor was strong around the rim throughout the contest. Junior LaQuan Butler scored all seven of his points in the second half, too, as he aided a competitive half from UTRGV. After trailing by 22, the Vaqueros were able to claw back to down 11 by keeping Tarleton off the board for two minutes late in the game. Freshman Donte Houston Jr. had an exciting play, slamming down an alley-oop assist from redshirt junior Ricky “Doc” Nelson for a dunk. UTRGV had another solid game from the charity stripe, going 16-of-21 on free throws. UTRGV visits Lamar on Wednesday, March 2 at 7 p.m. Fans can watch in the United States on ESPN+ or internationally on the WAC Digital Network.