Liberty was outlasted by Louisiana Tech in Ruston, Louisiana on Saturday night, 79-74. The Flames fall to 14-3 on the season and 2-2 in conference play while the Bulldogs improve to 13-4 overall and 2-2 in CUSA.
“Proud of our guys effort,” said Liberty head coach Ritchie McKay. “We said going in, you’ve got to win the little battles. Unfortunately, I don’t think we won as many as they did tonight. Very uncharacteristic to give up 52 second half points, but had foul trouble and, obviously, Colin went down. Our bench is fairly short as it is. A lot of this is the timing of when you play someone. I think this league is really balanced. A lot of really good players, good coaches. If you take their point guard out of the game and that game happens tonight, maybe we have a little bit of advantage. You can’t overreact to the outcome. Our guys have a lot of heart. We have a good team. I’m proud of their effort, but obviously some areas we want to grow in.”
The first 15 minutes of the contest in Ruston Saturday night were very competitive. No team led by more than four points in the early going. That would change when Liberty went on a 13-4 run, led by senior guard Taelon Peter during the spurt. He scored 10 of those 13 points, including knocking down two three-pointers and Liberty went into the locker room with a 34-27 advantage.
Owen Aquino was limited to just 8 first half minutes as he was straddled with two early fouls. Already thin in the frontcourt, it caused the Flames to be even more thin against the best big man in the league in Daniel Batcho. With Aquino on the bench for much of the first half, Liberty turned to Zach Cleveland and Zander Yates on the Louisiana Tech big man and they held their own.
Liberty maintained a 7-point lead in the opening moments of the second half until Colin Porter exited the game with a lower leg injury. While the Flames’ point guard was in the locker room being attended to, Louisiana Tech went on a 8-0 run to regain the lead. The teams would exchange buckets the next few possessions before Batcho made four straight free throws and then the Bulldogs went on a 7-0 spurt to push their lead to 9. From there, Liberty was playing catch-up.
“He has a big heart,” McKay said of Porter. “He asked to go back in and said, ‘if you don’t like what you see, take me back out.’ Who does that? Colin, there’s a reason why he has the role that he does on our team. He creates for others. He can make his own shot. He’s a terrific defender.”
Down the stretch, with Porter on the bench nursing his injury and Louisiana Tech focusing on keeping Kaden Metheny from getting clean looks, the Flames turned to Taelon Peter. The senior guard scored 16 points in the final 4:36 of game action including the team’s final 12 points of the night. It wouldn’t be enough as Liberty never was able to cut the game to one possession with the ball.
Like many teams in Conference USA, Louisiana Tech is really difficult to beat on their home floor. They are 179-24 at home since 2012, the 9th best mark in Division I over that stretch. They are also 82-8 at home in conference play.
The Bulldogs dominated Liberty on the glass, 44-23. They limited the Flames to one shot pretty much all night while also grabbing some offensive boards to keep possessions alive.
“It’s significant, that’s the key of the game,” said McKay. “That is very uncharacteristic. I’ll have to go back and watch why exactly it was what it was. Another season high in fouls. They play that kind of brand. I think that’s going to be the lot against us – try to take Kaden Metheny out of it and then just send as many guys as you can to the glass. I think that’s why Taelon got free so often because they were crashing so hard.”
Peter finished the game with 33 points on 9 of 13 shooting while making 5 of 9 from three and 10 of 12 from the free throw line.
“I don’t think his confidence has ever waned,” McKay said of Peter. “He was out the whole summer. So, he got zero reps in our system. I think the longer he’s in it, the better he gets. Typically, when you have Colin in the game, we have a little different look. He saw the way they were playing Kaden and took the initiative to try and be a little more aggressive. They can’t guard everybody like they do Kaden, so I thought he took advantage of it.”
Jayvon Maughmer added 13 points and 6 rebounds while Zach Cleveland had 11 points, 4 assists, and 3 rebounds.
Metheny was held to just 3 points as he was 1 of 8 shooting and 1 of 5 from three. Porter had 8 points in his 23 minutes played while Aquino scored 6 points and had 4 rebounds before fouling out in 20 minutes.
Batcho finished the game with 24 points and 12 rebounds while guard Sean Newman scored a career-high 27 points. Only four Bulldogs got int he scoring column with Amaree Abram scoring 13 and Sean Elkinton adding 12.
“There’s a reason they were preseason number one, it’s a very good team,” said McKay. “They lost a game to Southern that was really detrimental to their analytics, but we threw that out the window. Then, they lost badly to New Mexico State, but Coach Hester didn’t even play those guys after about the 15-minute mark. Their week of practice, I think they dialed it up. There’s not a lot of people that come out of here with wins, but both times we’ve played we’ve had our opportunities. This isn’t something that we’re pleased with. We always want to win the game. Our guys get off the bus having the expectation that we’re going to get the desired outcome, but we won’t die by it. We just have to get better. Heal some guys up and see if we can’t protect our home court.”
Liberty is back at home this coming week for two games, beginning Thursday night against UTEP. The Miners are currently 12-4 overall and 2-1 in conference play after falling to New Mexico State, 85-57 Saturday night.
