Bobcats with Best Start in 14 years

By Brenden Snow
Sports Reporter

Monday night, we witnessed basketball history for the Texas State Men’s basketball team. The team went into Boone, North Carolina, to take on the Appalachian State Mountaineers in a Sun-Belt Conference matchup and came out with a win. The team took it by a final score of 68-55 and got their first win at Appalachian State since joining the the conference.  

The 13-8 start gives the team its best start in 14 years and a 5-3 conference record has them in 5th place of the conference. It’s still a tight race at the top of the conference as the bobcats sit just 1 game behind 2nd place.

It was an all around strong game for the whole Bobcat team as it everyone seemed to contribute. The lead scorer went on to be Nijal Pearson with 13, but right behind him was Kavin Gilder-Tilbury with 13 and Ojai Black with 10.

Bobcat Fans show support at Monday’s game against Appalachian State. Photo by Madison Tyson.

Those guys got more help than they are accustomed to as the bench had 19 and were led by freshman Marlin Davis’s 9. Tyler Blount and Maxwell Starwood would combine for the other 10 points.

It wasn’t just the team’s strong shooting performance though, their defense was in full force as well. The Bobcats suffocated the 3rd leading scorer in the conference, Ronshad Shabazz, holding him to 6 points on 3-13 shooting. As opposed to the 17.3 he is used to averaging per contest. The Mountaineers also shot just 39% from the field for the game going 10-51 and couldn’t get the deep ball going for them as they were just 3-16(18.8%) from beyond the arc.

The Bobcats will look to carry the momentum of this 3rd straight win into Saturday where they will have a tough game to play. The team will be headed into Arlington, Texas, to take on UTA in a battle between the 4th and 5th place ranked teams. The Bobcats shocked some people as they upset the Mavericks last time they played, 81-73 in San Marcos.

The game Saturday will tip-off at 4:30 from Arlington. You can hear the call hear on KTSW.net or tune in on you radio to 89.9 fm.

Featured image by Brenden Snow.