Courtesy of LA Tech Athletic Communications
Louisiana Tech’s frontcourt was too much for Southern Utah as Isaiah Crawford tallied a team-high 18 points while Daniel Batcho added a double-double with 10 points and 12 rebounds in leading the Bulldogs to a 67-53 victory over the Thunderbirds on Tuesday afternoon inside the Thomas Assembly Center on Karl Malone Court.
Tech hosts McNeese State (5-1) today at 3 p.m. Prior to the Bulldogs match-up, Southern Utah will face Texas State at 12 p.m. at the TAC.
“Southern Utah was a team scoring in the 80s and we wanted to slow them down,” said Tech head coach Talvin Hester. “We wanted to punch them inside where we had the advantage. I thought we did a great job of limiting them of getting easy baskets at the rim. Batcho was unbelievable at the rim contesting and blocking shots. I am very proud of how we played defensively.”
LA Tech’s (3-1) game plan coming in was to punish SUU (1-3) inside. That they did, outscoring the visitors, 36-22, in the paint. Their physicality also led to 24 free throw attempts, which the ‘Dogs sank 16 of them.
“They were more guard oriented so we wanted to try to punish them inside as much as possible,” said Hester. “I thought we had a mismatch on both ends. I did not want to take a bunch of threes and let them have run-out opportunities. That is why we played a little more methodical.”
Aside from the Thunderbirds scoring the opening bucket of the game, the Bulldogs led for the remainder after going on a quick 8-0 run. Back-to-back three-pointers by Tahlik Chavez and Jaylin Henderson made it 16-7 with 12:53 to go in the first half, forcing a timeout by SUU.
LA Tech would make only one more three-pointer the rest of the contest. But, they rarely took shots from beyond the arc. Instead, they force-fed the basketball inside as much as possible.
Batcho’s alley-oop dunk made it 24-11 in favor of the home team, their largest lead of the first half. Ultimately, LA Tech would take a 35-25 advantage into the locker room at the midway point.
A stretch of back-to-back layups at the rim by Jaylin Henderson and a three-point play by Dravon Mangum helped make it 52-33, their largest lead, with 11:24 to go in the game.
SUU hung around though, going on a 7-0 spurt to get the deficit down to 11 and force a timeout by Hester with still 5:08 to play. However, LA Tech fed Batcho for a baby hook bucket coming out of the TO as the Bulldogs allowed just one made field goal the rest of the way.
“Tough teams know how to finish games,” said Hester. “We were in control of the game, but we were not finishing it. I reminded them that with four minutes to go, it was still a basketball game. It was three or four possessions from them being right in it. All the credit to the team, they made the plays. They did their job. I just reminded them that we want to be able to put teams away.”
LA Tech shot 47.1 percent from the field (24-51), getting double-digit efforts by Crawford and Batcho as well as Henderson who tallied 10 points, the fourth straight game of hitting double figures.
Batcho also added three blocks and two steals to his stat line, helping anchor a defense that limited SUU to a season-low 32.2 percent shooting (Thunderbirds came in averaging 88.0 points per game). Zion Young scored a game-high 19 points, but needed 21 shot attempts to do it.
“I think this group is unbelievable at spending time with each other. They love being around one another. When you can cheer for each other, to the buzzer they were cheering for each other. It is easy to play when you know everybody around is celebrating you. I love coaching them every day.”
