Box Score
DALLAS — A career night from St. Mary's
Isaiah Matthews wasn't enough against Dallas Baptist on Thursday.
Matthews' career-high 24 points helped pull the Rattlers out of an 11-point deficit in the second half, but the Patriots stormed back to hang on 73-69 at the Burg Center — dealing the Rattlers their first road loss this season in the process.
DBU's Jonathan Perry drained a contested 3-pointer with three seconds left for a four-point game that effectively put the game out of reach for St. Mary's (12-4, 5-3 Heartland Conference).
Marvin Binney had 15 points for the Rattlers, while
Marvin Whitt and
Kameron Pearce added 10 points apiece and Matthews hauled in a team-high eight rebounds as StMU dropped to 4-1 on the road.
The loss dropped St. Mary's from a three-way tie for second place into fourth place in the Heartland standings, and a full two games behind league-leading Texas A&M International, whom the Rattlers upset in triple overtime last weekend.
Myles Johnson led five Patriots in double figures with 16 points on 5-of-10 shooting in a foul-filled fest that saw 53 combined personal fouls and 66 combined free-throw attempts.
St. Mary's went into the break down 30-28 but quickly found itself down 11, 42-31, less than three minutes into the second half. But after starting the game 0 for 7 from 3-point range, the Rattlers heated up from beyond the arc to drain five of their next 10 to claw back into the game.
Whitt tied the game at 46-46 on a 3-pointer with 12:45 left, and
Bryce Smith followed by connecting from downtown to give StMU its first lead of the half, 53-52, with 10:28 remaining.
But DBU wouldn't go away as the teams juggled the lead the rest of the way.
Binney, St. Mary's hero in its triple-overtime victory at TAMIU, missed a free throw with 44 seconds left that would have tied the game at 68-68. On the other end, Johnson drained a 3-pointer with 11 seconds left to go up 71-67.
Binney dashed to the bucket for an easy layup to make it a one-possession game, 71-69, with four seconds left, but Perry put an end to the Rattlers' comeback hopes with a clutch 3 coming out of a timeout.
The Rattlers shot 44.0 percent (22-50) from the floor on the night, barely edging DBU's 43.2-percent (19-44) mark.
St. Mary's will travel to take on Oklahoma Christian in Oklahoma City on Saturday.
