Bobcats Handle Vandals

King added seven points and grabbed a game-high eight boards. Conley finished the game with eight points and seven rebounds.

SAN MARCOS, Texas – A tight game for the first 27 minutes, the Texas State men’s basketball team used an 18-6 run to take control on its way to a 64-55 victory over Idaho Wednesday night in Strahan Coliseum in front of 3,086 fans for the CollegeInsider.com Tournament second round contest.

The Bobcats will host a quarterfinal contest on Saturday at 4 p.m. against St. Peter’s of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. The Peacocks defeated Albany on the road in the first round 59-55 and received a bye into the quarterfinals.

With the win, Texas State improves to 22-13 on the season while the Vandals conclude their year at 19-14. The two postseason victories are the most the Bobcats have recorded since 1979 when that squad won the first games of the NAIA National Tournament.

Idaho jumped out to a 6-2 lead two minutes into the game. After an old-fashion three-point play by Immanuel King, Nijal Pearson knocked down two free throws to give the Bobcats their first lead of the game at 7-6.

Seven quick points from the Vandals was countered immediately with a 7-0 run from Texas State that was capped off with a layup from Tyler Blount.

After trading the lead, Idaho scored five straight to take a three-point lead with just under 2:30 to go. Ojai Black knocked down a jumper and two free throws to close out the scoring in the period and send the Bobcats into halftime leading 24-23.

Texas State made its first seven shots of the second half but led by just one after the Vandals’ Pat Ingram knocked down his second three-pointer of the contest. Pearson countered with a triple of his own to kick start the Bobcats’ 18-6 run that spanned 7:12. During that stretch, Pearson scored eight points with two three-pointers.

Over the next 1:53, Idaho outscored Texas State 9-1 to cut the Bobcat lead to 58-53 with 3:20 remaining. Neither team was able to score for the next 80 seconds until Pearson knocked down his third trey of the game and the last made field goal for either team.

Bobby Conley converted 3-of-4 free throws in the final 1:30 to seal the victory.

Leading Texas State with 16 points was Nijal Pearson. The freshman connected on 5-of-10 shot attempts was 3-for-6 from beyond the arc and was 3-of-4 at the charity stripe.

He also finished with four rebounds, four assists a team-high two steals and a block.

Gilder-Tilbury contributed 14 points on 7-of-14 shooting. He also grabbed six rebounds, handed out two assists, blocked two shots and recorded a steal.

The senior moved into sixth place on the career scoring list and 10th on the single-single scoring list with 1,379 and 567 points, respectively, while also becoming the program’s career leader in three-point attempts with 447.

Also adding his name to a single-season list was Black after dishing out a game-high five assists. The Killeen, Texas native now has 139 assists this year, the 10th most in school history, and is just one shy of tying Donald Harvey (1985-86) for ninth place.

The senior also netted 13 points as he made 5-of-7 shots and all three of his free throw attempts.

King added seven points and grabbed a game-high eight boards. Conley finished the game with eight points and seven rebounds.

Off the bench, Marlin Davis handed out three assists without turning the ball over and recorded a steal.

For the latest on Texas State men’s basketball, visit the official website of Texas State athletics at www.txstatebobcats.com, follow the team on Twitter at @TxStateMBB, Instagram at @TxStateMBB and like on Facebook at /TexasStateMensBasketball.

Box Score: http://txstatebobcats.com/boxscore.aspx?path=mbball&id=5047