Mitchell leads Texans to 91-63 victory over Coastal Bend College

LEVELLAND—Raquan Mitchell scored 19 points and Jordan Brangers finished with 17 as the fifth-ranked South Plains College Texans improved to 6-0 on Saturday with a 91-63 win over Coastal Bend College at the Texan Dome.

"I thought our second group of starters came off the bench and really got us going," South Plains head coach Steve Green said. "I was glad to see Raquan have a good game and was our leading scorer. We didn't pay much attention to our scouting report in the first half, because we told them they could catch and shoot 3s. At halftime they were 7-for-15, and we put those numbers on our dry erase board in big and red. I think they had one 3 in the second half."

South Plains began the contest with a 24-9 run capped off by a two-handed slam from Brangers with 13:09 remaining. Grantham Gillard connected from behind the arc with 8:39 to play giving the Texans a 31-17 advantage. A put back at the rim from Texas Tech commit Josh Webster pushed the Texans lead to 48-33 with 2:40 left, with the Texans eventually heading into the locker room at the break leading 50-36.

"I was really just trying to push to the basket and get my jump shots open up," Mitchell said. "I didn't have a very good game yesterday, so I just went to the gym and worked on my shot and things turned out better this game. My game plan is to get to the rim first and find some shots. We just try to drive and penetrate, so we're all really just trying to create shots for others. All of us can score, but I feel like we are the best passing team in the country."

South Plains began to pull away midway through the second half following a 15-2 run. Justice Green found the net on consecutive jumpers to extend the Texans' lead to 66-44, which was followed by a 3 from Mitchell to push the lead to 69-44. Mitchell hit from the perimeter one more time with 8:15 remaining, giving South Plains a 78-49 advantage.

South Plains shot 47 percent from the field in the final 20 minutes while forcing the Cougars to turn the ball over 17 times and shoot an abysmal 32 percent from the field. Jahill Tripp chipped in 14 points and nine boards for the Texans while Gillard finished with 13. Justice Green totaled five boards and hauled in nine rebounds while Webster scored four points and dished out five assists.

"Everything went well for us tonight," Tripp said. "We had a team meeting last night after the game and talked about these guys picking up a big win yesterday and wanting to go 2-0 and beat us, and we couldn't let that happen. The team looks for me to be a leader when I get the ball in my hands, so I'm just trying to trust them and make the right plays."