SAN MARCOS, Texas – The trio of
Drue Drinnon,
Jordan Mason and
Nate Martin finished with career-high in points Thursday night but Texas State fell 81-73 to Marshall in Strahan Arena.
Drinnon led the Bobcats with 17 points and Martin added 16 points and seven rebounds with five coming on the offensive end. Mason netted 10 points on 4-of-8 shooting and set a new career best of four assists.
"I would like to start by thanking Bobcat Nation in coming out and supporting us. With school starting backup and COVID starting to spike a little bit, so for people to come out and support this team it means a lot," said head coach
Terrence Johnson. "I appreciate our administrators, marketing department, student body, President and community for supporting these guys. They needed it and was definitely appreciated. If we can continue to do that, then the sky is the limit for what this team can accomplish."
"Respectfully, that is a very good basketball team we played tonight. It is a group of posed, veteran guys that understand how to play the game of basketball and made it look simple," said Johnson. "I thought my guys did a phenomenal job of completing, bringing culture to the floor and I appreciate them in their efforts. We came up short and didn't make the plays we needed to make."
The Bobcats dropped to 10-10 overall and 3-4 in the Sun Belt Conference while the Thundering Herd are now 16-4 and 5-2 in league play.
Also reaching double figures was
Tyrel Morgan and
Davion Sykes with 10 points apiece. Morgan retrieved a game-high eight rebounds and recorded TXST's lone block of the night.
As a team, the Bobcats outrebounded Marshall 31-23 with an 11-3 advantage on the offensive glass. Those second chances led to 15 points.
The Herd scored the first three points of the game at the free throw line. A 9-2 run for Texas State followed with
Mason Harrell and Drinnon each knocking down a triple.
Coming out of the under 16-minute media timeout, Marshall went on a 19-4 run to take its largest lead of the game at 24-13 with 8:23 left in the first half. A layup through traffic by Harrell was the start of the Bobcats chipping away at the deficit to eventually take the lead at 31-30 with 47 seconds to go in the period on made charity stripe attempts by Mason. Following a Kamdyn Curfman's sixth made trey of the game, Morgan was able to net a layup with a couple seconds left to send the game into halftime tied at 33.
Twice Texas State held a lead in the second half with the last coming at the 14:48 mark after Martin made two free throws. Sykes twice tied the game as the latest came on a reverse layup with just under four minutes to play.
Marshall was able to pull away and seal its victory at the free throw line going 5-for-6 over the last 30 seconds.
Next up for the Bobcats is a meeting with Louisiana on Saturday at 4 p.m. Prior to the game, the court will be dedicated in honor of Jeff Foster and the 1997 Southland Conference championship team will be recognized at halftime.
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