For the second game in a row, the Cowboys couldn’t quite deliver on an early lead and land an early knockout punch – this time against the Austin Peay Governors at home.
The Cowboys initially built a nine-point lead just a little over halfway through the first half, but an 11-0 run by the Governors quickly snuffed that lead out in mere minutes. The Cowboys would eventually escape the first half with a narrow two-point lead.
That knockout punch looked to finally land in just minutes after halftime, with the Cowboys erupting out of the locker room with a 10-0 run. Instead, the Governors quickly answered with 10 straight points themselves to keep the game within a possession.
“We could have had some knockouts at about the 10 minute mark. We could have had some knockouts at about the 18 minute mark in the second half,” head coach Sundance Wicks said. “We let down our guard and they got a good hit on us, and took us to the floor.
“So, now we got to go up and get a decision. We can’t be sitting here waiting for decision, we gotta get some knockouts.”
There was one glaring statistic that kept the Governors always within reach of the Cowboys – turnovers, 12 of which came in the first half of play.
“We knew they were going to try to speed us up, it was just constant turnovers, just mental mistakes. Second half we knew we had to pick it up,” guard Damarion Dennis, who finished with zero turnovers, said.
While the Governors were threatening for much of this game, they were only able to maintain a lead for a total of 47 seconds and only remained tied with the Cowboys for three and a half minutes. The Cowboys could just never seem to fully pull away.
However, that final blow would finally come to fruition by the hand of Uriyah Rojas – plus a little help from the elevation at 7,220 feet. Rojas finished his night with a team-leading 23 points, including a 6/7 mark from deep. Four of those triples came in the second half, which helped finally put this one away by a final score of 79-65.
“Uriyah, from the offensive standpoint, was outstanding,” Wicks said. “We recruited him because he made 75 threes at Chaffey College and he can score, and we needed a guy who would be a weapon.”
Dennis earned the coveted buffalo trophy, awarded to the player who best impacts the game on both sides of the floor. Dennis finished +20 in the final box score, scoring 17 points on 8/13 shooting from the field alongside five rebounds and four assists.
“He plays both ways, and he plays both ways hard. He plays the game of basketball the way I like it,” Wicks said.
Abou Magassa pulled down a career-high 11 rebounds, marking his first time grabbing double-digit rebounds in a game. Gavin Gores added 10 points to round out the players in double figures.
The Cowboys will wrap up their four-game homestand Saturday against undefeated Portland, where the Cowboys will look to begin the season 4-0 for the first time since the 2021-2022 season, the last time the Cowboys reached the NCAA tournament.
Who will be the one to step up and lead the Cowboys to an undefeated start in the Arena-Auditorium?
“The competitive effort for 40 minutes needs to be better and the competitive execution for 40 minutes needs to be better,” Wicks said.
“But, I’m never going to be upset about a win, because there’s only a handful of teams after today that are going to be 3-0 in the country – and we’re going to play another one on Saturday.”
