If this is what Mississippi University for Women’s men’s basketball team can expect out of Terryonte Thomas, the Owls are going to win some games this year.
In fact, the Owls did a lot of things right Tuesday against Rhodes College, but Mac James buried a 3-pointer from the corner with seven seconds remaining to lift the visiting Lynx to a 77-75 win over the Owls at Pohl Gym.
It was a heartbreaking finish for a team that rallied from 11 points down with 8 minutes to go to take a lead in the closing minute.
It also spoiled a terrific debut for Thomas, a 6-4 senior from Columbus who transferred from Sam Houston State after playing at East Mississippi. In his first game since gaining NCAA clearance, Thomas nailed 12 of 20 shots from the floor, including 6 of 8 from downtown, and finished with 33 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists and just 1 turnover in 37 minutes.
“He’s a special talent,” The W coach Dean Burrows said. “I think at times our guys watched and stood around, but then they figured it out. … That’s a pretty good stat line.”
But the good news didn’t stop there.
“We talked about flipping the assists to turnovers, and we did that,” Burrows said. “Coming in, I think we were 12-to-17.5, and we literally flipped that (the Owls finished with 18 assists and 12 turnovers). We talked about winning the glass, and we did that by four (36-32) after being down at half.”
But it was still a loss, and one negative statistic stood out.
“We talked about getting to the line, not settling for shots, and I think early on we settled,” Burrows said. “They got to the line 18 times and made 17, and that’s the difference in the ball game. We got to the line 10 times and only made four.”
The other big problem was turnovers, not the number but the result. The W committed only three more turnovers than Rhodes (12-9), but the Lynx outscored the Owls in points off turnovers 26-9.
And Burrows remembered specific incidents that, taken together, added up to another Owls loss.
“Early on we fouled two jump shooters on 3-point attempts,” he lamented. “That can’t happen.” The Lynx made all six free throws.
Still, the Owls were in position to win at the end.
“We had our best practice of the year yesterday coming off of exams,” Burrows said. “We hadn’t done anything in two weeks, literally. Yesterday was Day 1 back. Our guys did a great job, and I’m proud of them.”
Interestingly, the five players on the floor during the wild ending — the Owls trailed 72-63 at the 5:38 mark — were not all starters, with Quintiyus Causey, Shon Wright and Dariun Doss joining starters Thomas and JaQuan Hines for crunch time.
“We’ve got depth that we can put out there, and I think we showed that to an extent,” Burrows said. “I felt comfortable with that group going down the stretch, and I think they earned the right to be out there on the floor.
“That’s not a knock on those guys who started, because they did some good things. We had 10 guys play double-digit minutes. We had four guys play 20 minutes or more.”
Burrows pointed to Wright as an example of a player following his “stay ready” mantra.
“Take Shon Wright, coming in and playing the last 15 minutes of the game,” Burrows said, noting Wright’s 13 points and 2 steals during that time. “That’s a kid who started a few games for us, and I told him to stay ready. And he did it. He came in and produced.
“Ken Davison had 6 assists, 1 turnover. That’s what Ken does.”
Trailing by 9 with just more than 5 minutes to go, things started to go The W’s way. Wright nailed a 3 after an offensive rebound was tapped out to him, and when Koki Wiley tried to answer for the Lynx, his shot went in and out on a drive through the lane.
Thomas hit a long 3 to make it 72-69, and again Wiley — who led Rhodes with 29 points and 12 rebounds — saw a drive to the hoop end with the ball rolling off of the rim. Thomas then used a solid screen from Hines to drive to the basket and draw a foul, the and-one pulling the Owls even with 2:06 left.
Another one-and-done trip for the Lynx was followed by an unsuccessful drive by Causey that left the Owls’ bench screaming for a foul. Wiley then sank a runner for a 74-72 Rhodes lead with 58 seconds to go.
Following a timeout, Wright hit a 3-pointer to put the Owls up 75-74, and when Doss grabbed a rebound on a Rhodes putback attempt, the Owls looked good with a half-minute left. But Doss missed the front end of a one-and-one to leave the door open.
Jalen Essick took the inbound pass at midcourt and found Wiley, heavily guarded by Wright, in the corner. Wiley then turned and drove the baseline and found James for the winning shot.
The Owls will head to Blue Mountain this weekend for games against Bethel on Friday and Blue Mountain on Saturday before returning home for a rematch with Blue Mountain on Thursday, Dec. 16.
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