St. Mary's (4-4, 1-0 Heartland) at Lubbock Christian (4-3, 1-0 Heartland)
Saturday, December 20 at 3 p.m.
Lubbock, Texas (Rip Griffin Center)
 
About St. Mary's
The opened Heartland Conference play Thursday night with an 84-67 win at Oklahoma Panhandle State to even their overall season record to 4-4. Only one Rattler, senior guard Marvin Whitt, is averaging double figures (14.5 ppg), while senior guard Marvin Binney, senior wing Isaiah Matthews and junior guard Kriston Minor are each adding just over eight a piece. Whitt earned Conference Player of the Week honors on December 8 after averaging 16.5 points throughout his team's two games.
 
History between Chaps and Rattlers
St. Mary's leads the all-time series, 3-1, but LCU was the winner of the last matchup, earning a four-point victory in overtime in San Antonio last season.
 
Last meeting of LCU and StMU
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (February 15, 2014) – Anthony Brancato drilled a shot from deep to give Lubbock Christian a three-point lead with 3:18 remaining in overtime against St. Mary's, and Tyler Rogers went 6-of-6 from the free throw line in the final minutes to preserve a 73-69 win by the Chaps at Bill Greehey Arena on Saturday afternoon. Eli Baker compiled his 11th double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds, Rogers scored the entirety of his 16 points after halftime and A.J. Luckey scored 10 to will the Chaps to a program record seventh straight conference win and their ninth victory in the last 10 games.
With under six minutes to go in regulation, Rogers nailed a shot from beyond the arc with a hand in his face to give LCU a 51-42 cushion, but the Rattlers stormed back with a three-pointer from Kameron Pearce and six St. Mary's free throws to slice the lead to 53-51 with 3:15 left to play. The Chaps put three points on the board via free throws, but a defensive lapse on the other end of the court allowed Ryan Thomas to sneak in for a score.
Baker and St. Mary's Marvin Binney traded buckets for a 58-55 ball game play in favor of the Chaps with 50 seconds to. Head Coach Todd Duncan called timeouts on the next two possessions, and Rogers was fouled with 15 ticks left on the clock. He converted the second shot to give the Chaps a 59-57 edge, but LCU was whistled for yet another foul, sending Binney to the line for the double bonus. He stayed perfect at the line with his ninth and 10th free throw, tying the game with four seconds to go, but the Chaps were unable to get off a shot before the buzzer.
In the extra period, Rogers sank two of his free throws on the first possession of the game before a Binney jumper knotted the score with 4:17 remaining. Following Brancato's biggest shot of the game, Rattler Ryan Thomas air balled his first free throw but made the second, and Ridrell Holman scooped up a missed Brancato three and put in the four-footer to extend the Chap lead to 66-62 with less than two minutes to play. Brancato dropped a shot through in the paint, but Binney cut the six-point lead in half with a trey at the 48-second mark.
Rogers and Binney each sank a pair from the charity stripe to put the Chaps up 70-67 with 16 seconds to play. Luckey hit one of two from the line and Binney knocked two in at the nine-second mark to bring the Rattlers within a deuce. Rogers was fouled and made both free throws to put the Chaps ahead, 73-69, and giving St. Mary's a chance with five seconds remaining. After a Rattler timeout, Marvin Whitt's three-point attempt was off the mark and Jeremy Ford secured his career-high eighth rebound to seal the Chap win.
Between the two teams, 51 fouls were called and 81 free throws were attempted in the contest. In the first half, St. Mary's only hit three field goals, but shot 22 from the line compared to eight from LCU. Binney, the game's leading scorer, totaled all of his 23 points after the first half and went 14-of-14 on freebies.
Ford played the game's entire 45 minutes and dished out a game-high six assists, while Rogers was on the floor for only 12 minutes due to foul trouble and went 11-of-12 from the line.
 
Luckey leading offensive charge
Junior guard A.J. Luckey's 19.1 ppg provides over a quarter of the Chaps points this season and ranks as the fourth highest in the Heartland. The Dallas native has led the team in scoring in six of its seven games, with a season-best 24 coming against Texas A&M Commerce in the season opener on November 14. Luckey is also contributing 3.6 assists, 3.9 rebounds and 1.3 steals on the year.
 
Sophomore surge for Cardona
Forward Isaac Cardona has stepped up during his second season as a Chap, nearly doubling his point average and hauling in three more rebounds per game. The Calhoun High School product is recording 10.3 points and 6.3 boards for the Chaps, compared to 5.9 and 3.0 in 2013-14. This season, Cardona posted a career-high 21 points and nine caroms in a 72-55 victory over McMurry on November 25. He also leads the team in field goal percentage at .509.
 
Season and career debuts
In Tuesday's 74-50 win over Ecclesia, four Chaps made their first 2014-15 season appearance and two players hit the LCU floor for the first time. Redshirt freshman Lucas Shuster and newcomer John Lewis made an introduction to the box score with Schuster reeling in a rebound and Lewis collecting four points and two boards. In addition, sophomores Ondrej Gargula and Jacob Dawson were finally cleared to play after suffering injuries early on.
 
Duncan hits half-century mark
Head coach Todd Duncan earned win number 50 win during his fourth season at the helm of the Chaps on Tuesday in the defeat of EC. Duncan is now 50-40 all-time during his tenure, including a 12-6 mark in Heartland play, which earned LCU a third-place finish last season.
 
Energetic Chap performance blows away Dustdevils
LUBBOCK, Texas (December 18, 2014) – Lubbock Christian cruised to a 73-55 victory over Texas A&M International in the teams' Heartland Conference opener behind a game-high 14 points from both A.J. Luckey and Ridrell Holman, along with a career-high dozen points from Marcos Schuster Thursday night at the Rip Griffin Center.
The Chaps (4-3, 1-0 Heartland), picked to finish sixth in the conference preseason poll, only trailed the Dustdevils (5-4, 0-1 Heartland), predicted as a third-place finisher, for 25 seconds at the start of the contest and led by as many as 29 early into the second half. LCU was quite efficient from the floor, connecting on the majority of their field goals (23-of-44), hitting half of their shots from behind the arc (8-of-16) and nailing 19-of-21 from the free throw line.
Not only did the Chaps shoot the ball well, but the team also was solid defensively, holding TAMIU to 36-percent shooting and keeping Dustdevil leading scorer Patrick Carlson to 10 points below his season average of 17.
LCU displayed energy and confidence from the moment the ball was tipped with Marcus Arrington setting the tone with a hard drive for the first points of the evening. The Dustdevils responded with a three-pointer from David Horst, but that lead would quickly disappear after a steal and layup by Schuster to give the Chaps a lead they would never again relinquish.
Arrington hit a three and then went coast-to-coast to put the Chaps up 9-3 five minutes into the game. TAMIU twice cut the lead to six within the next four minutes, but LCU went on a scoring frenzy, outscoring the Dustdevils 19-2 over the next four-and-a-half minutes. During that span, Beau Durham collected three of his career-high 10 rebounds and scored four points, and Luckey registered seven consecutive Chap points to push LCU's lead to 23 with 6:37 remaining before the break.
Perhaps the most emphatic play of the game came at the 2:33 mark when Schuster chased down TAMIU's Marcus Hall on a breakaway layup and pinned Hall's shot against the backboard. Durham chased down the rejected attempt, passed out to Arrington who found Holman in the corner for a three-pointer he hit while falling down that forced TAMIU to call a timeout.
Another steal and layup by Schuster and a three-point play by Holman put LCU out in front, 43-17, before Matt Alford made two free throws after being fouled on a three-point attempt as the shot clock expired to put the Chaps up 45-20 at the break.
The second half was comprised of more LCU highlights, including a pair of three-pointers from John Lewis, his first since joining the squad, which extended the Chap advantage to 67-40 with just over six minutes left to play. The Dustdevils then strung together a 7-0 run, but the damage had already been done, giving LCU a 1-0 start in league play.
For TAMIU, Montrice McKnight scored 13 points, and Vadal Faniel had 11.