LAWTON – The Aggie men's basketball team gave top-25 ranked West Texas A&M a fight on Saturday, but it was not enough to win the non-conference battle between the two rivals as they fell 85-72.
Cameron men entered Saturday looking to snap a nine-game losing skid with a non-conference win over No. 18/20 Buffs. A rough middle 20 minutes of play was too much for the Aggies to overcome, dropping their 10thstraight and falling to 2-13 on the year.
The Aggies hit 40 percent of their shots but were just 8-28 from three and 12-19 from the foul line. On the other end of the floor, WT shot 48 percent from the field and went 9-23 from three and 14-23 from the charity stripe. The Buffs also out-rebounded CU 43-39 and capitalized on 14 turnovers forced with 18 points off takeaways and 22 points on the fast break.
Colt Savage recorded another 20-point outing for the Aggies, going 7-17 from the field and adding nine rebounds.
Brock Schreiner came on in the second half, scoring 16 points with four made triples, all of which came in the final 20 minutes of play.
Connor Slater added eight points in the second half, finishing with 14 points and six boards, while
Deondre Earley added six points, six rebounds, five assists, and two steals for the Aggies.
Nikolaos Argyropoulos came up with some big minutes off the CU bench, scoring a career-high 10 points with a pair of made triples.
After going back and forth for the first 12 minutes of action, WT started to pull out in front by using three straight triples to go up 36-24. Their 12-point advantage is where the deficit sat at halftime, 44-22.
With a great start to the second half, the Buffs saw their lead swell to at most 20 with 6:11 to play. That is when Schreiner started to catch fire, scoring 10 straight points to cut the deficit to 75-65. After a miss by the fourth-year guard, West Texas A&M settled in and scored four straight to extend their lead back out to 14. They were able to knock down free throws in the final minutes to hold on for the 85-72 win.
Julius Brown led WT with 23 points and six assists, Larry Wise and Hayden Blankley each added 16, and Zach Toussaint finished with 13 points.
Cameron returns to conference action on Tuesday, Feb. 8, when they host Texas A&M-Commerce at 7:30 p.m. They then welcome Eastern New Mexico to the Aggie Gym on Thursday, Feb. 10, and top ranked Lubbock Christian on Saturday, Feb. 12.
