SMU shocked by UTSA for third-straight loss

The losing streak reached three games on Saturday afternoon as the SMU basketball team fell to UTSA at Moody Coliseum.

The Mustangs came out firing on all cylinders, but couldn’t maintain it for the full 40 minutes. SMU was never able to put UTSA away when the opportunities presented themselves.

SMU finished the game shooting just 3-for-13 from the floor. One of those was a 3-pointer to pull within one with 1:32 to play, but that was the last points the Mustangs would score.

Score: UTSA 77, SMU 73

Record: 19-10, 10-6

Next Game: Wednesday vs. East Carolina, 7 p.m. (ESPN+)

Player of the Game: One bright spot on a tough night was the play of Jalen Smith. He had 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting, knocked down a pair of 3-pointers, pulled down five rebounds and had a team-high three assists in the loss.

Leading Scorers: Zhuric Phelps (18), Smith (15, five rebounds), Ricardo Wright (13, five rebounds), Ja’Heim Hudson (10).

Sequence of the Game: In the final 35 seconds of the game, UTSA held onto a one-point lead after trading 3-point shots, with Phelps making his with 1:32 left in the game. Jordan Ivy-Curry reached his game-high 33rd point of the night on his fifth 3-pointer to put UTSA up four with 15 seconds left. The Mustangs nearly turned the ball over, but got it back and called timeout with seven seconds left. SMU would get a shot off, but it would no go and UTSA ran out the clock.

The rest of the story: The Mustangs came out with the intensity and purpose you’d expect from a team with two-straight losses playing a struggling team. SMU scored the first five points, led 11-3, 16-6 and 21-8 just over 10 minutes into the game. But UTSA answered with a 14-0 run to take the lead and an overall 19-3 run to go up by three.

SMU would manage to to take a two-point lead at halftime, but was never able to build it. The most the Mustangs would lead by in the second half was four points, three times, the last on a Phelps three-point play with 7:18 left. Hudson hit a 3-pointer to put SMU up by two with 4:24 to play, but the RoadRunners got a 3 of their own to take the lead back and would never give it up.

Notable Stat I: It was the third game in a row that the Mustangs shot under 40% and sixth of the season.

Notable Stat II: Without Chuck Harris in the lineup, who injured his ankle this week during practice, Wright stepped into the starting lineup and played a season-high 30 minutes.

Final Word: The one thing SMU couldn’t afford coming off the two losses in Florida and having no midweek game was coming out flat. While they didn’t, playing its best basketball of the game over the first 10 minutes, they were unable to maintain it over the final 30 minutes of the game.

The other thing the Mustangs couldn’t afford was letting Ivy-Curry take over. That’s just what the UTSA sharpshooter did, going 12-of-22 from the floor with five 3-pointers, 4-for-4 from the free throw line. PJ Carter also had a big night for the RoadRunner with 23 points and five 3-pointers of his own.

Whether it was bad offense leading to bad defense or vice versa, either way the Mustangs weren’t sharp at either end of the floor.

At the end of the day, as bad as the loss at Wichita State was, this was worse.

Coach Lanier said: “Give a lot of credit to UTSA. In the midst of a long year, for them to be playing better, playing well, to go on the road and beat North Texas, to come in here and win, it’s a real credit to their staff and their players for them to keep playing with the level of purpose that they have. … Our message was, the level of energy and urgency was going to be really critical for us coming off a bye week and two disappointing games. And we sustained it for a little bit early. We know they’re going to shoot a lot of 3. They average 30 in game, they lead the nation, they shot 28 tonight, made 12 of them. They made a lot of tough shots. But there’s just a multiple efforts and toughness we didn’t have that juice when it really mattered the most close out some possessions.

“Proud of some of the things we’re able to do tonight, but I said to these guys coming back from Florida that we’ve got a good mindset but we did not have the appropriate mindset. The difference between becoming good and taking the next step. And we were in that space. I would equate it to an NFL player who does great during the regular season, but there’s something more required when you get to the playoffs. And there’s an added level of intensity and urgency that you have when you get down to the end of the year and seeding and there’s a lot of things on the line and now you’ve got a good enough reputation that people respect you so you know you’re going to get teams’ best shot. There’s a different mindset there that is a work in progress.”