MARSHALL, Texas – A double-digit first half deficit proved to be too much to overcome as the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor men's basketball team fell to East Texas Baptist 98-82 Thursday night in Marshall. The loss drops the Cru to 13-9 overall and 5-8 in American Southwest Conference play on the season. The Tigers move to 17-5 overall and 10-3 in the ASC with the victory.
 
UMHB never led in the game and ETBU opened with an 8-0 run. The Tiger lead would grow to 29-18 with 7:38 left in the opening half and ETBU was up 43-33 at halftime. The Tigers stretched it out to a 20-point advantage with 15:06 left to play and the Cru never got closer than the final margin the rest of the way as the Tigers answered each UMHB run in the final 20 minutes.
 
Sam Moore led UMHB with 24 points and he added 10 rebounds. Devyn Brewton added 19 points off the bench and Logan Hicks scored 18 on 4-9 shooting from three-point range. Casey Armour added a team-best 11 rebounds on the night. The Cru shot 35 percent from the floor and 31 percent from three-point range. UMHB did out rebound ETBU 49-46 in the loss.
 
Jordan Gray led a balanced Tiger scoring attack with 22 points and 12 rebounds. Nathan Fontenot scored 18 points and three other ETBU players were also in double figures. The Tigers shot 46 percent from the floor and hit 15-38 from beyond the arc. ETBU also got 46 points from its bench on the night.
 
The Cru will travel to Longview to take on LeTourneau University in a 3 pm start on Saturday. The UMHB men will then close out the regular season with road games at Howard Payne and Sul Ross State next week.