Things haven’t gone as expected for the Broncs. After starting conference play in January with two consecutive wins at home, the University of Texas-Pan American basketball team holds a 3-7 conference record and prepares for the last stretch of the season. Saturday, the team faced Houston Baptist at its home and fell 76-62.
The match against HBU had been expected by sophomore guard Jareed Maree, who is a Houston native and graduated from Cesar Chavez High School. Maree got the opportunity to have a crowd of family of friends cheering for him, feeling at home while on the road and motivating him to score 24 points that night.
“Going into the game we were pretty excited; we went to my hometown, so I wanted to go out there and play hard and win the game,” Maree said.
UTPA made 23 of 61 attempts (38 percent), while the Huskies accomplished 43 percent of their shots. The Broncs made only 60 percent of all free throws attempted and completed 35 rebounds compared to 44 from HBU.
“We played pretty well for the most part... in the start of the first half and the start of the second half we were sluggish defensively,” said head coach Ryan Marks. “Other than that and the fact that our primary shooting wasn’t great, but in general I thought we played a pretty good game.”
In fact, maintaining consistency throughout the game and being able to finish games strongly are some of the issues that the team has encountered this year. But this may also suggest that if that consistency can be accomplished in the last games of the campaign, the Broncs will be able to pick up momentum for the Great West Conference Tournament.
“There’s a little bit of irritation that we haven’t won some of the close games, our record in the year and our record in the conference isn’t where we hoped it would be, but I think that the guys feel confident that we can play with anybody in the conference on a given night,” Marks said.
Moreover, the improvement of the players’ chemistry on the hardwood and the development of young members will be beneficial in the last two road games before the tourney ends, as well as being something to look forward to in future seasons.
“Offensively we share the ball a lot better, a lot of that is the guys becoming accustomed with one another,” Marks said. “In general a lot of guys have improved, but our young guys, Jared Maree is a sophomore, Aaron Urbanus is a freshman. Those guys are really playing well and have come a long way.”
But for now, the focus is in the next couple of weeks, which start today at Vermillion, S.D, where the Broncs will face South Dakota before heading to North Dakota to play them Saturday.
“My teammates and I feel pretty good,” Maree said. “We have two more games and we’re ready to get the win, it’s a chance to beat North and South Dakota and get the win back.”
UTPA lost close games against these two teams in the end of January. North Dakota defeated the Broncs 78-74 in double over time, while South Dakota surpassed them in a heartbreaking 72-71.
Far from being discouraged by the 4-25 overall record up to this point, the Broncs are still motivated knowing that mental toughness of one of the keys, because the GWC Tournament is somewhat of a season on its own where three games determine the program’s position in the conference.
“We work mostly on the mental part, your body is not as ready as it was in the beginning of the season, so it’s all about the mental part,” Maree mentioned. “We try to focus on the little things when our coaches tell us what to do, and really get it in our minds that we want to be ready for the conference championship.”
The Great West Conference Tournament will take place March 10-12 in Orem Utah.
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