Stephen F. Austin
Texas-San Antonio
'Jacks `Not Ready To Go Home'
3/13/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 13, 2008
KATY, Texas - Thursday's Southland Conference Tournament showdown with UTSA was as close to home as Matt Kingsley has played in a game this season. Interestingly enough, it was his intense desire not to go home early that propelled the Houston native to one of the best games of his career, helping Stephen F. Austin stave off elimination with a 71-60 first-round win over the Roadrunners.
With the SLC champion Lumberjacks struggling to find shots from the field, Kingsley went to work on the offensive glass. He pulled down a career-high nine offensive rebounds and finished four points shy of his career-high with 26. In all, Kingsley ripped down 11 rebounds for his fifth career double-double.
"I just wasn't ready to go home, yet," Kingsley said with a smile when asked what was the driving force behind his monster game.
"I think Matt played as good a game as I've seen him play in his three years with me," head coach Danny Kaspar said of his redshirt junior center.
After going to the locker room with a haftime deficit for just the second time this season, the Lumberjacks rallied in the second half behind Kingsley and senior guard Gerald Fonzie, who tied career-highs with 29 points and five 3-pointers.
"At halftime, I told the guys somebody's going to have to step up," Fonzie said. "Josh (Alexander) only practiced once this week, so we had to get some shots from somebody else. It just happened to be me."
Alexander, SFA's leading scorer and the SLC Player of the Year, came into the game averaging 16.5 points per game. Thursday, playing through a hip injury he sustained in Saturday's regular-season finale, Alexander had just two points and no field goals at the half.
But Fonzie answered his own halftime plea. He opened the second period with a pull-up jumper to turn a five-point UTSA lead into a 31-28 Roadrunner advantage. The Lumberjacks tied the score at 31 two minutes later on an offensive rebound and layup by junior Nick Shaw.
UTSA responded and regained a 3-point advantage, but, after a pair of Alexander free throws cut the lead back to one, Kingsley got an offensive rebound and laid it back in for SFA's first lead (35-34) since the 15:53 mark of the first period.
The Roadrunners stepped back in front on a 3-pointer by Melvin Smith, but Shaw fed Kingsley down low for a layup on the following possession to tie the game at 37. Devin Gibson gave UTSA a two-point lead at the other end, but Fonzie followed a Kingsley foul shot with a 3-pointer to give SFA a 41-39 advantage.
The Roadrunners managed to knot the score one last time when Keith Spencer got loose inside for a dunk, but Fonzie canned another triple on an assist from freshman Eddie Williams to give SFA the lead for good with 11:15 to play.
With sophomore point guard Eric Bell sitting to rest a sore calf in the middle of the second half, Williams -- typically a shooting guard -- was thrust into the point guard role against UTSA's 2-3 zone.
"I think a key adjustment was putting Eddie at the point and getting Gerald and Josh, our two best shooters, out on the wings," Kaspar said. "Eddie had some great looks distributing the ball, and Gerald knocked down some big shots. I think that's where we separated ourselves from UTSA.
"Eddie had no points tonight, but he played a huge role in this win."
Williams finished with two assists and no turnovers in 16 minutes of action.
The Lumberjacks quickly pressed their advantage to eight points (54-46) by the 7:04 mark with another three from Fonzie and seven points from Kingsley, and UTSA could get no closer than six the rest of the way. SFA's presence on the offensive glass ensured that.
On back-to-back possessions, encompassing two minutes of clock time, the Lumberjacks combined for five offensive rebounds -- two by Kingsley, and one each by Shaw and Fonzie. Alexander got in on the act for the fifth one, flying through the lane to stuff home a missed 3-point attempt with two hands and give SFA a 63-53 lead with 3:42 to play.
Despite his shooting woes -- Alexander was just 2-for-13 from the field -- he finished with nine points and chipped in with eight rebounds, five coming on offense.
With time running out on their season, the Roadrunners were forced to foul, and SFA hit 8-of-8 at the stripe in the final 3:36 to salt the game away.
"This win, you've just got to credit it to our guys playing hard," Kaspar said. "Our defense was good, especially in the second half. (UTSA) still shot it well, but our defense was better. We doubled our effort in the second half."
SFA opened with an ice-cold 35.7-percent effort in the first half, and UTSA could do no wrong, knocking down 66.7 percent from the field and 80 percent from 3-point range.
"It's one of those games where it seemed like everything they shot was going in, and we couldn't hit anything," Kingsley said. "I did feel like we were playing hard and just weren't getting much to show for it, so that was the most frustrating thing."
"When the other team is shooting like they did tonight, and you're only down five at halftime, you know your guys are playing hard," Kaspar said.
Fonzie and classmate Scott Weaver were two big reasons why the Lumberjacks were only down five at the half. They helped keep SFA in the game with some timely long-range shooting. They each knocked down a pair of 3-pointers in the opening period, and Kingsley turned four first-half offensive rebounds into four second-chance points to help keep pace.
UTSA was led by freshman point guard Devin Gibson, who had 15 first-half points on 6-of-8 shooting and finished with 27 points, tying a career-high.
For the Lumberjacks, no player besides Kingsley and Fonzie reached double digits. Nick Shaw put in eight points with five rebounds, Bell added three points, three rebounds and six assists, and Weaver finished with six points on 2-of-4 shooting from 3-point range.
For the game, SFA outrebounded UTSA, 34-24, and pulled down more offensive rebounds (19) than defensive (15). The Lumberjacks finished with a 23-10 advantage in second-chance points and outscored the Roadrunners, 26-16, in the paint. SFA turned the ball over just eight times while forcing 17 turnovers from UTSA and outscoring the 'Runners, 14-4, in points off turnovers.
The Lumberjacks improve to 26-4 on the season and advance to meet No. 5 Northwestern State in the semifinal round. That game is scheduled for an 8:30 p.m. tip Friday at the Merrell Center. The Demons took a 71-51 win over No. 4 Southeastern Louisiana in Thursday's late game.
The win makes SFA 7-10 all-time in SLC Tournament games. It is the Lumberjacks' first tournament victory since a 72-70 win over McNeese State in the 2006 tourney, and SFA's first neutral-site win since taking a 94-91 win over McNeese State in the 1996 tournament at Shreveport, La.
-- SFA --
