LONGVIEW, Texas – Despite being held to just their third-lowest scoring output of the year and 11 points below their season average, the LeTourneau University men's basketball team pulled out a convincing 80-63 home victory over Texas-Dallas in a battle of top squads in the American Southwest Conference East Division at Solheim Arena in Longview, Texas on Saturday, January 13th.
 
LETU is now 12-2 overall and 6-1 in the ASC while the Comets drop their fifth game of the year to fall to 9-5 and 5-2 in the ASC.
 
"We got exactly what we expected which was a tough ballgame played by both teams and in the end we made a few more plays than Texas-Dallas to pull ahead and win" said head coach Dan Miller in a post-game interview with Hayden Henry of the Longview News Journal. "Our field goal percentage was low for us, and I was glad to see us win a grind it out type of game." "Our guys played a little complacent to start the second half, but once we refocused we were fine." "We ask Nate West to do a lot for our team, and I was proud of him for setting the tone early when we had trouble scoring."
 
UTD, which came into today's game fresh off a 17-point victory at East Texas Baptist while making 45 percent of their shots from the field on the season, shot a season low 27.5 percent (19-69) from the floor and made just six of 20 threes. LeTourneau would overcome a poor shooting first-half from the field (12-36, 33.3 percent) by connecting on 14 of 26 shots in the second half to finish with a 41.9 percent shooting percentage while edging out the Comets 45-43 on the glass. Points off turnovers broke by a margin of 16-5 in favor of the YellowJackets, who forced 12 UTD turnovers and scored 24 points in the paint.
 
West dropped a career-high 28 points in the game, going 10-18 from the floor and hitting six triples while grabbing seven rebounds. Junior Caleb Loggins picked up his fourth double-double of the year after scoring 12 points and a total of 15 rebounds (five offensive, 10 defensive) and two assists while going a perfect 6-6 at the charity stripe. Freshman Justin Moore also had double-digits, finishing with 13 points and four assists. Texas-Dallas had three players in double-figures with a team-high 17 points coming from Dimitrius Underwood.
 
LeTourneau lived and died by the three in the opening minutes of the game, scoring the first six points of the contest from long range before seeing a 4:22 scoring drought allowed Texas-Dallas to score the next 12 points of the game to lead by a score of 12-6. West broke the drought by hitting back-to-back threes to knot the game at 12 with just over 13 minutes left in the first half as LETU raced out to an eight point lead following an 11-1 run to force a UTD timeout.
 
Out of the timeout, LeTourneau managed to score seven of the next nine points to claim a 32-19 lead with 5:47 remaining in the first half, but the Comets refused to let the deficit grow any larger as LeTourneau would be forced to settle for a 38-26 halftime lead.
 
A pesky Comet squad quickly showed their offensive firepower to open up the second half, scoring 14 of the opening 16 points to erase their double-digit halftime lead and trail by one at 41-40. West and Moore took over on the offensive side of the ball for the next several possessions for LETU, scoring seven straight points to push the lead back to 48-40 in a span of 1:21, but saw UTD manage to hang around.
 
Following a pair of Underood free throws to cut the LeTourneau lead down to six with 10:41 remaining in the game, LETU would use a 6-0 run to get the lead back to double-digits and never look back as the YellowJackets would run away with the victory while leading by as many as 20. The double-digit victory now gives LeTourneau eight of their 12 wins by 10 or more points this season and a perfect 4-0 record inside Solheim Arena.
 
Things don't get any easier for the preseason ASC East favorites, who will have a quick turnaround to play their second consecutive game featuring the top two squads in the division in East Texas Baptist University on Monday, January 15th. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. against the Tigers, who will enter Monday's contest 11-3 overall and 5-2 in the ASC.