Bulldogs fall to hot-shooting Roadrunners

SAN ANTONIO – UTSA hit a program-record 18 three-pointers and Jhivvan Jackson poured in 37 points to help hand Louisiana Tech its first conference loss of the season, an 89-73 setback on Thursday night inside the Convocation Center.

LA Tech (11-4, 2-1 C-USA) was ambushed from the get-go by UTSA (7-9, 1-2 C-USA) as the Roadrunners made 17 of their first 23 shot attempts to build a massive 46-21 lead through the first 15 minutes of action.

After being down by as much as 29 early in the second half, the Bulldogs made a couple of strong runs to slice into the deficit. However, it was a deficit that was too big to overcome.

“I thought we came out playing hard, but I didn’t think we were crisp with our execution with what we really wanted to do,” said head coach Eric Konkol. “Sometimes if you leave just a crack against a really good scoring team, they can build confidence quickly and it did for their entire team. We just could not stop enough guys on their team to make it competitive.”

The ‘Dogs put together an 11-0 run early in the second stanza to trail 59-41, but the Roadrunners answered with back-to-back threes.

LA Tech made a 7-0 run a couple of minutes later and were on the verge of getting back into the game, behind 64-46 with 12:08 to go. But once again, UTSA responded with back-to-back threes (both by Jackson who hit eight on the night).

The shooting percentages ended up being nearly a wash as the Bulldogs shot 48 percent while the Roadrunners shot 49 percent. The big difference was the outside shooting as UTSA made 12 more threes than LA Tech.

DaQuan Bracey and Kalob Ledoux each scored 12 points and Derric Jean tacked on 11.

LA Tech will now head to El Paso on Saturday, Jan. 11 to take on the UTEP Miners. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. CT on ESPN+.

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