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January 10, 2009

Dawkins, Brown set tone as Cardinals jump on SLU early

By Bob West

BEAUMONT — Lamar University hit Southeastern Louisiana with its best shot Saturday night in the Southland Conference opener, and the result was a deceptively close 76-65 triumph that left Lions head coach Jim Fortenberry singing the praises of the Cardinals in general and Kenny Dawkins and Jay Brown in particular.

“They are so tough in here,” said Fortenberry, after LU put a wire-to-wire whipping on the Lions that saw the victors build a 23-point lead before slacking off in the final six minutes. “We thought we might be able to slip in here and steal one because we’ve played some good teams close on the road, but they never let us in the game.

“Jay Brown was really dominant around the basket and we let Dawkins get loose on us in the second half. He’s the best point guard in the conference and he can take a game over like he did in the second half tonight. It’s just going to be awfully tough for anybody to beat them in here.”

Dawkins scored 19 of his 24 points in the second half, while Brown contributed 12 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and four blocked shots. Included in the 6-7 Brown’s offensive output was a couple of first half three-pointers.

Lamar, rooted on by a rowdy crowd of 3,487, also received a terrific effort off the bench from Coy Custer, who scored 11 points and grabbed four rebounds in 17 minutes. Brandon McThay gave the Cardinals a fourth double figure scorer with 10 points and Ashton Hall added nine points and four assists.

The victory boosted Lamar to 10-4 on the season and extended the nation’s fifth longest home floor winning streak to 20 games. Southeastern Louisiana, which cost the Cardinals the top seed in last year’s SLC post-season tournament by beating them in the regular-season finale, dropped to 6-8.

LU never gave the Lions a glimmer of hope in this one. Tristan Worrell sank the game’s opening basket, Brown and Hall hit treys on the next two trips for an 8-0 advantage and the lead stretched out to 19-5 before the Lions could get untracked.

SLU crawled back as close as six points, but it was 34-24 at halftime, then Dawkins came out smoking. On Lamar’s first six possessions, he hit two treys and a mid-range jumper to push it out to 45-31 with less than four minutes elapsed. His third trey of the period followed by a pair of foul shots swelled the lead to 66-46 with 8:47 to play.

“In the first half, they were playing me tough and I just tried to get all my teammates involved in the game,” said Dawkins, who dished all five of his assists in the first 20 minutes. “They relaxed a little bit on me in the second half and things just opened up to get some shots.”

Dawkins’ 4-of-7 effort behind the arc was part of a sizzling 10-of-21 (47.6 percent) for the Cardinals, with five different players sinking a trey. LU actually hit a higher percentage on threes than its overall shooting of .450 (27-of-60). And once again they were deadly at the foul line, burying 12-of-15 freebies for 80 percent.

Southeastern was paced by SLC scoring leader Kevyn Green, who also turned it on after a slow start. Green, who had only two points in the first 19 minutes, finished with 24 in what was his last game as a collegian. Warrell Span added 14.

LU coach Steve Roccaforte, as you would expect, was elated with his team’s play. In addition to the offensive heroics, his Cardinals held SLU to 29 percent shooting in the first half and 39.1 overall, and won the boards 41-36.

“We were very sharp,” said Roccaforte. “The first four minutes might be as good as we have played all season. “We made our shots, we played hard on defense, we went after loose balls and we got on the boards tough.

“I would have liked to see us close out the game better, because the score was not indicative of the way we played and dominated. “We’ll do some work against the press. I’d rather see Kenny break it by himself. It looked like we wanted everybody to touch the ball.”

Asked if he thought this might have been Lamar’s best performance of the year, even better than the 85-79 victory over Texas Tech, the LU coach stammered, paused, reflected and then said it probably was.

“That was a different kind of game. We had to come from behind. We took charge early in this one and kept playing well. Yeah, I’d have to say this one was the best.”

Lamar’s next test is on the road Wednesday at Texas-Arlington. The Mavs, of course, knocked the Cardinals out in the opening round of the SLC tourney last March.



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