The Sam Houston State Bearkats lost their 16 straight game Wednesday night in a Southland Conference matchup versus the Lamar Cardinals at Johnson Coliseum. The Bearkats never held a lead as the team lost by a final score of 70-44.
“We talked a lot today about action,” head coach Brenda Welch-Nichols said. “ We have to go out and make some things happen and I know it doesn’t show it in the stats, but we got after it and did some things we haven’t done in a long time. We shot the ball better, but we had some bad turnovers.”
Taking care of the basketball is a major key to winning some games. The Bearkats committed a total of 31 turnovers, with 14 coming in the first period alone. Lamar capitalized on the Kats’ mistakes by scoring 28 points off of turnovers.
Welch-Nichols says that the turnover margin was the deciding factor in Wednesday’s game.
“They scored 28 points off of 31 turnovers; that is your game right there,” Welch-Nichols said. “When you look at the difference in the score … but I am not going to take anything away from Lamar. They are a seasoned team. I won’t sit here and say we didn’t fight.”
On the offensive end, both teams shot poorly from the field. SHSU finished the game shooting 34.1 percent, while Lamar shot 36.2 percent. Senior center Jasmine McCants led all Bearkats in scoring with 14 points.
“Our effort was definitely there tonight,” McCants said. “I feel like we showed up a little late. Personally, I feel like I showed up late in the game and I feel like we need to give it all four quarters instead of just three. We just need to work harder in every quarter.”
McCants led all Bearkats in points, rebounds (8), assists (2) and blocks (2). Welch-Nichols is happy with McCants’ effort and believes she’s the team’s leader.
“McCants is a kid that can do a lot of good things,” Welch-Nichols said. “We look for her inside that paint. We really need to get the ball inside. I thought we didn’t hit the post game as well as we have in the past. I think that is something we have to go back to looking at.”
Other notable Bearkats scorers were freshman guards Jenniffer Oramas and Tia Hairston, each scoring five points. On the defensive end of the court, freshman post Kiera McKinney had two rejections and four rebounds.
“Kiera McKinney had a great night as far as blocking some shots,” Welch-Nichols said. “Our freshmen had a great night and I think we got a lot of great leadership out of Jenniffer Oramas.”
The Bearkats (0-16, 0-6 SLC) will continue to search for their first victory of the season as the team plays host to the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders (6-11, 2-4 SLC) on Saturday.
Tipoff is set for 4 p.m. CT at Johnson Coliseum.