The Southeastern Lions basketball team rallied past the Texas A&M- Corpus Christi Islanders, 67-53, to seal their fifth win of their last seven games, bringing their Southland Conference record to 5-3.
Although the Lions sealed the victory, the Islanders did not make it easy; the lead changed four times, and the score tied five times over the course of the game.
Senior forward Roosevelt Johnson scored 18 points and a game-high 13 rebounds during Saturday’s game in the University Center, recording his fifth double-double of the season.
“The game tonight was back and forth because the other team did not give up,” said Johnson. “They were far from being done. They got the lead, but our team, we tied it up on defense and let the defense turn it over to the offense. I think it’s about focus and consistency.”
Lions basketball head coach Jim Yarbrough agreed, touching on the lack of consistency in both teams during the match.
“Corpus Christi has got, not a great record, but they’ve led a lot of people,” said Yarbrough. “They are competitive as can be. They just don’t know how to finish a game. They’ve got a couple of very good weapons offensively, but I expected us to be down during this game. Now, I was hoping that once we got control of it we’d keep control of it, but we lost it, and I thought our defensive effort was great, but offensively we did not take advantage of free throws. We didn’t take advantage of some easy shots, and you invite a team to stick around when that happens.”
Both the Lions and the Islanders struggled to take control in the first half of the game. Southeastern held the lead at 26-16 at halftime, but Texas A&M-CC managed to bring the score to a 30-30 tie at the 14:16 mark in the second half. The Islanders then took their biggest lead of the game, 40-36, but Southeastern picked up the momentum starting with two free throws by Johnson, bringing the score to 42-40 and holding onto the lead through the end.
The Lions ended the conference game with a score of 67-53, and although the victory was won, Yarbrough is already thinking about how to improve before the next conference game.  
“For me, I want to find our ability to transition from Thursday to Saturday better,” said Yarbrough about how the team can improve. “We seem to play very emotional games on Thursday, and we play very flat on Saturday. I don’t know if there’s a solution to that, but I know that the Saturday game next weekend is a late game so it gives us a few more hours off of our feet and rest. I just have to do a really good job of trying to keep up our energy, so I’m just trying to see if we can emotionally improve and get better and see if our bench can improve.”
The Lions have played ten games on the road so far this season, and their next three conference games are also on the road.  
 “We played seven of our first ten games on the road, but we were playing Wisconsin, Arquette, Florida, New Mexico State. Even Louisiana Tech, who’s playing pretty well this year. It was a good game for a half, and then we lost total control of that. So we didn’t get a whole lot of confidence. We lost a couple of games we should have had on the road, so all of a sudden the team becomes a little fragile on the road. We dug out a tough one at Lamar. It’s going to be a tough stretch, six of the next eight on the road. I’m just hoping we can bring a little magic from this building and see if we can’t steal a win or two on the road.”
Despite their current 7-11 overall record for the season, Johnson feels that the multitude of away games has prepared the team for their upcoming conference matches.
“That prepared us a lot, so we can be used to the atmosphere away from home,” said Johnson. “We’re ready for it.”
The Lions will next be travelling to play the Central Arkansas Bears on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. The game can be heard on KSLU-FM (90.9) and will be broadcast live on ESPN 3.