'True grit'

The Louisiana Tech Bulldogs refused to let another Conference USA foe shoot them out of a game, especially on their home court. Not this time.

The Bulldogs’ 81-77 loss to Sam Houston from a week ago still was on the minds of players as they found themselves trailing early and often against Liberty after allowing the preseason league favorite to hit seven three-pointers in the first half, eventually trailing by seven at halftime. It looked to be the Flames would extinguish Tech’s perfect home record with a hot afternoon from behind the arc.

But the Bulldogs knew the Flames, despite coming in winless in league play, would put up a fight with shooters across the board. Tech was ready for a fight. And in the end, the Bulldogs (12-6, 2-1) pulled together on defense and had big shot makers down the stretch to take a tight 80-76 overtime win over the Flames Sunday at Thomas Assembly Center.

“At the end of the day, when you have a pursuit for a championship, you’re going to have to do tough things,” LA Tech head coach Talvin Hester said. “Today, we did something tough. I know it was home court but that’s a really good basketball team. I think if anybody counts them out, they’re crazy. They’re going to go win a lot of games. They’re going to be really tough to beat at home. I don’t even want to think about them till we have to play them at home again because they’re really well coached.”

Liberty shot 15-29 (52%) from the field in the first half with a barrage of threes, with Tech struggling with the Flames’ motion and active screening to allow for slip-outs to create open shooters. Tech, meanwhile, walked into halftime shooting 37% with Isaiah Crawford and Daniel Batcho combining for 15 points on 6-15 shooting.

Nothing like a second half reset to turn the tide.

Liberty hit just three three-pointers between the second half and overtime and 11-31 shooting overall (35%) to squander its hot start.

As Liberty’s flame was flickering, the Bulldogs’ top offensive weapons began to turn up the heat and keep the game close throughout the second half, as Batcho and Crawford combined for 26 points in the second half.

Batcho’s presence around the rim proved to be the catalsyst of the comeback with multiple put-backs for the big man to give Tech a brief 69-68 lead with under two minutes left

Two late turnovers by the Bulldogs allowed Liberty to tie it at 69-69 before heading into overtime.

“It took everything,” Newman said postgame. “Going into overtime. It’s forcing you to dig deeper and you got an extra five minutes and forcing us to dig deeper and you know it’s something we prepare for every day in practice. Our coaches do a great job pushing us. Sometimes during practice we’re like, ‘Dang, why are we going so hard?’ but it’s wins like this and games like this where you’re glad your coaches push us hard in practice.”

Newman put his team on his back as he crashed to the basket on multiple hard drives, drawing contact and finishing at the rim to put Tech up 73-71 and then 75-71 with just over two minutes left.

The dagger for Tech’s win came off the hands of Tahlik Chavez, who scored 19 points with three three-pointers, as he nailed a three with 59 seconds left to extend the lead back to 78-74.

To close it out, Newman put in both of his free throw attempts to put Tech ahead 80-76 with 24.3 seconds left.

Liberty managed nothing on the other end and fell at to the Bulldogs in the TAC, like everyone else.

“I feel like we showed true grit,” Chavez said. “We’ve been grinding in practice ever since that Sam Houston State loss, it’s been a chip on our shoulder and we feel like we owe that back and we’ve just been going hard in practice.”

As for his clutch shot with under a minute to go?

“That’s what I’m here for,” Chavez said.

In three conference games, Chavez is shooting 50% from three and averaging 18 ppg – two factors Hester knew the Bulldogs could count on when it mattered most on the quest for a CUSA title.

And while the original design of Chavez’s three was meant for Batcho in the post, Hester was happy to settle for his 41% three-point shooter going for the dagger.

“The goal was to get a ball screen and get Batcho downhill because their bigs were in trouble but we always want to put them in a tag situation that we had another option and so they roll with Batcho and Tahlik was wide open and Sean found him,” Hester said. “And if you’ve ever been around him, he doesn’t lack confidence at all. I sat in here and answered questions about him missing shots at the beginning of the year and my statement was, ‘he won’t miss them too long. We’re going to stay with him.’ You gotta have guys like that on your team.”

Batcho finished with 21 points, nine rebounds, and three blocks, while Isaiah Crawford scored 22 points, grabbed six rebounds, and blocked a career-high seven shots. Newman scored 14 points, six coming in overtime, to go with five assists.

LA Tech takes on Jacksonville State in Jacksonville, Alabama on Saturday at 4 p.m. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.