T-Birds win with big second half

JASON FARMER  NEWS-SUN
January 31, 2020

The New Mexico Junior College men's basketball team used a big second half to put some distance between itself and the visiting Western Texas College Thursday night as the Thunderbirds beat the Westerners 81-69 in Caster Activity Center.

"I come from a boxing family and you have to be the aggressor," NMJC coach Luke Adams said. "You have to be the one that throws the first punch. Our mentality wasn't that in the first half. We never could get it going. We were just timid. That wasn't us.

"They responded in the second half," the T-Birds coach continued. "They were a different team and I was really proud of them for how they responded."

Starting the second half with a one-point lead, the T-Birds controlled things over the final 20 minutes of play.

Western Texas College scored first in the second half to take a 36-35 lead. After responding with a bucket, to go back in front 37-36, the Westerners returned the favor, putting NMJC back down by a point. However, that was the last time NMJC would trail as the T-Birds countered with a 5-0 run to take the lead.

Western Texas managed to tie the game at 50-50, with 10:49 left in the game, but the T-Birds never fell behind. From that point on, NMJC outscored Western Texas 31-19 over the back half of the second half to seal the win.

"We didn't have many turnovers during that time, but we rebounded better and limited them to one shot," Adams said. "They kind of took some quick shots that they sometimes make. We tried to limit them to one shot and make it tough for their best players that they wanted to get the ball to and we did that."