Lubbock Christian (13-9, 10-5 Heartland) at Rogers State (16-7, 10-5 Heartland)
Saturday, February 14 at 3 p.m.
Claremore, Okla. (Claremore Expo Center)
 
About Rogers State
The Hillcats are 16-7 overall and 10-5 within the Heartland and are in a five-way tie for first place, along with LCU, in the Heartland.
 
History between Chaps and Hillcats
RSU leads the all-time series, 10-6, while LCU has won four of the last five meetings.
 
Last meeting between LCU and RSU
LUBBOCK, Texas (January 15, 2014) – Lubbock Christian lost a consecutive Heartland Conference contest of the season, dropping a 72-61 decision to Rogers State on Thursday evening at the Rip Griffin Center while struggling from the field and allowing the Hillcats to hit half of their field goal attempts.
The Chaps (7-6, 4-2 Heartland) loss to RSU (9-6, 3-4 Heartland) comes after Saturday's setback to Oklahoma Christian, marking only the second time LCU has posted back-to-back conference defeats, with the last pair being recorded during the 2013-14 season, also within the month of January.
LCU was held to 38-percent (20-of-53) shooting from the floor, including a 3-of-12 night by A.J. Luckey, the team's leading scorer. However, the Hillcats netted 25-of-50 of their attempts with Frederico Santos posting 18 points and J.C. Hartzler adding 16.
Down 37-33 at the half, the Chaps quickly found themselves down by another three on a triple by Hartzler on the first play after the break, but Marcos Schuster then nullified the addition with a three of his own. The teams traded buckets until a three-pointer by Luckey cut the deficit to 44-43 with 16:30 remaining.
A three-point play by Matthew Alford knotted the score at 46-all, and a bucket by Isaac Cardona gave the Chaps their first lead of the game at 48-46 with 13:45 to go. The Hillcats then scored on their next four possessions while LCU failed to add to their total, putting RSU ahead 56-48 with under 11 minutes to play.
A layup by Santos stretched RSU's lead to double digits following a media timeout, but successive three-pointers by Luckey and John Lewis spearheaded a 9-2 LCU run allowing the Chaps to pull within 60-57 and 7:28 to play. Santos went to work again by grabbing one of his game-high 16 rebounds and laying it back in on the offensive end while teammate DesJuan Newton hit a bucket in the paint before Santos added another pair of points at the free throw line for a 66-57 lead with just over five minutes on the clock.
With two minutes left to go, Ridrell Holman made one-of-two at the line to cut the Hillcat lead to 66-61, and Schuster secured a steal on the other end, but the Chaps were unable to capitalize and were forced to foul. The Hillcats went 6-of-8 from the line in the final 69 seconds to seal the victory.
For LCU, Alford posted a team-high 14 points and nine boards, while Schuster recorded 11 and Cardona tallied 10.
 
Chaps drop close contest to Lions, still retain piece of first place
FORT SMITH, Ark. (February 12, 2015) – A season-high 18 points by Ridrell Holman was not quite enough for Lubbock Christian to overcome Arkansas-Fort Smith Thursday night at the Stubblefield Center, as the Lions clawed their way to a 72-69 win over the Chaps to make their way into five-way tie along with LCU for first place within the Heartland Conference.
The Lion victory and Chap defeat now places the two teams atop the standings along with Rogers State, Texas-Permian Basin and St. Mary's, setting up a pivotal five-game finishing stretch to the conference slate.
Playing the entire 40 minutes of the contest, Holman connected on eight of his 14 shot attempts while leading Chap scorer A.J. Luckey, still recovering from an ankle injury suffered last week in the win against Oklahoma Christian, supplied 14 points off of the bench in 15 minutes of play.
A Luckey layup with 3:21 remaining in the contest sliced the Lion lead to 55-51 before Seth Youngblood came through with a dagger of a three-pointer less than a minute later to put UAFS (14-9, 10-5) up by seven. Twelve seconds later, Luckey was fouled on three-point attempt and sank the trio of shots to again place the Chaps (13-9, 10-4) within four.
Youngblood countered with a pair from the line to give the Lions 60-54 edge with 2:19 on the clock. Luckey then drained a shot from deep to make it a one possession game and 48 seconds left to play before Marcos Schuster came up with a huge steal and converted his theft into a layup to close the gap to within a point and 39 seconds to go.
Youngblood again came through with two successful attempts from the foul line to extend the UAFS lead to 62-59 and 25 seconds remaining. On the next Chap possession, LCU worked for a final game-tying shot, but Holman's try was off of the mark.
The Lions were led by Alex Cooper's 16 points, while Youngblood recorded 14, Kenny Martin posted 14 along with a game-high 14 rebounds, and DaVaunta Thomas added 11 points.