Lamar blows by LeTourneau in opener

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By Bob West

The Port Arthur News

BEAUMONT — As season openers go, it doesn’t get much easier than Lamar University’s 103-64 blowout of LeTourneau Tuesday night at the Montagne Center. The Cardinals led by 20 with less than eight minutes gone, were ahead by 30 with 2:35 left in the opening half and built the margin to 43 in the final period.

The only suspense was whether the Cardinals would top 100 points and trigger the Dairy Queen Popcorn Chicken giveaway for a crowd anounced at 2,615. Currye Todd, however, made sure fans didn’t have to sweat until the end by swishing a long, long trey with 1:32 remaining.

It was Todd’s second three ball of the final four minutes and enabled him to lead a parade of six Cardinals in double figures with 17 points. Darren Hopkins and Justin Nabors added 14, Matthew Barrow and Jay Brown contributed 12 each and Lamar Sanders chipped in with 10.

After the Cardinals had won their 10th consecutive home opener, and improved to 41-16 all-time on opening night, head coach Steve Roccaforte said the best part of it was that his team wasn’t a victim of the early season craziness in college basketball.

“You watch the scores and every night you see where a Grand Valley beat Michigan State and you see a Gardner Webb beat Kentucky and you see that Mercer beat USC. You look at those games and you know it can happen.

“When we scheduled this game, everybody said we shouldn’t have scheduled it. They said, ‘hey, they have a really good team, that guy (Bob Davis) is a good coach,’ and he is. He’s won like 425 games, I think, in his career. They have their top four scorers back. They are picked to win their league.

“It’s a dangerous game. But we chose to look at it like if we do things right, we’re going to be fine. The best part was we played from start to finish. No matter who went into the game, no matter what position they were playing, they played hard from start to finish.â€

LeTourneau certainly would agree. The Cardinals came out smoking and never really let up. Hopkins hit three treys on Lamar’s first six possessions and the Yellow Jackets were down 11-2 in the blink of an eye. It was quickly 24-4, then 43-13 and the count was 49-22 at halftime.

High on the list of positives for Lamar was the inside play of the 6-6 Nabors, who really came alive in the second half. During one stretch early in the final period, he scored on four consecutive possessions, with two of the buckets coming on putbacks.

By the time he took a seat, Nabors, who is every bit as tenacious around the basket as Lamar Sanders, had a game high 13 rebounds to go with 14 points.

“Rebounding is my thing,†he said. “Rebounds lead to points.â€

With Nabors setting the tone, Lamar collected plenty of rebounds. The Cardinals piled up a 58-29 backboard advantage. Sanders was second to Nabors with eight boards and Lawrence Nwevo contributed seven.

Besides the rebounds, Lamar’s biggest advantages came on points in the paint (44-22), second chance points (23-11) and bench points (46-18). The latter was a reflection of Roccaforte playing nine players for 14 minutes or more.

The stat that stood out more than any other, though, was 86.4 percent shooting from the foul line. Lamar made 19-of-22 at the charity stripe. Dawkins and Sanders were both 4-for-4 and Brown, Nabors and Ashton Hall were all 2-for-2.

Thanks to all the shots from point-blank range, Lamar hit 48.1 percent (37-of-77) from the field. And, with Todd going 4-for-6 and Hopkins 3-for-8, they connected on 38.5 percent (10-of-26) of their treys.

Twelve different Cardinals broke into the scoring column and 10 had a rebound. Almost overshadowed because of the type of game that unfolded was the contribution of junior point guard Kenny Dawkins.

Dawkins, who averaged 17 points per game in Lamar’s exhibition, scored only nine on Tuesday night. But he had also have five assists, three steals, three rebounds and committed only one turnover.

If there was a downer for the Cardinals, it was once again turnovers. After committing 25 in their final exhibition Saturday night, the Cardinals came back with 25 more against LeTourneau. Inside players accounted for 10 of them, with Sanders responsible for six.

With SEC foe Ole Miss up next on Friday night, Roccaforte knows his team must improve its ball security. LeTourneau, which doesn’t have near the athletes the Rebels will throw at Lamar, took the ball away from the Cardinals 12 times on steals.

“No question, we have to cut down on the turnovers,†said the Lamar coach. “A lot of them are coming from our post guys trying to do too much.â€

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