Box Score
The University of Texas of the Permian Basin men's basketball team has made a habit of playing well on the home hardwood, improving to 6-2 on the season at the Falcon Dome as it hit the .500 mark in the Heartland Conference and posted a winning record for the first time this year at 9-8 with a 68-60 win over St. Mary's Thursday night in Odessa, Texas.
UTPB (9-8, 4-4 HC) never trailed in the first half, leading 9-2 off of seven straight points as Xavier Martin broke a 2-2 tie with a three and Keith Martin and Xavier hit shots to jump ahead early on in the first three minutes.
The Falcons led by seven again a few minutes later on a Madison Turner layup with 15:08 remaining, but its lead waned over the rest of the half, holding around 3-6 points for much of the first 20 minutes until St. Mary's eliminated any advantage before halftime, scoring the final six points before the buzzer to head into the break tied at 22-22.
Rob Heyer helped give the Falcons some breathing room eight minutes into the second, hitting a 3-pointer to break a 38-38 deadlock and scoring again off of a missed St. Mary's shot to put UPTB up 43-38, and a Turner layup on the team's ensuing possession pushed its lead back out to seven points once again.
The Rattlers never backed down, closing to a point on a Moses Sundufu 3-pointer and a pair of free throws by Isaiah Matthews to pull to 47-46. They tied the game twice after UTPB free throws on two consecutive possessions and trailed by a single point before Tyler Reynolds started a UTPB run with a three from in front of the Falcons bench with 4:25 left to lead 56-52.
Another Xavier Martin triple with 3:28 on the clock boosted the lead up to six points, and a Turner trifecta under the two minute mark gave the team its largest lead of the night at 1:49. The Falcons hit 4-6 from the line in the final moments, enough to keep the Rattlers from getting their hopes up before closing out the eight point victory.
Xavier Martin had his best night in a UTPB uniform, scoring a season-high 23 points, 13 coming after halftime, on a 7-10 performance from the field while hitting 3-4 behind the arc to lead all scorers. Heyer added 13 points, 11 of them in the final 20 minutes of the night as he hit 5-7 shots while the team connected on 51 percent of its field goal attempts, its third-best effort this season and highest in HC competition.
Sundufu paced St. Mary's (12-6, 4-4 HC) with 16 points, 12 of them in the second stanza, and four threes. Kevin Kotzur added 13 points.
The Falcons return home Saturday afternoon, hosting Texas A&M International at 4 p.m.
