Texas State men’s basketball dropped its fifth straight loss Saturday against Central Michigan, marking its third time going on a losing streak this season and fourth game in the last five losing by double digits.
The Bobcats’ first losing streak occurred in November when they lost to TCU, Abilene Christian and Bradley. Just a couple of months later, they repeated their performance, dropping three straight to UT Arlington, Marshall and Appalachian State.
Mistakes seemed to be cleaned up as the Bobcats went 4-1 after their second losing streak. However, the Bobcats last won on Jan. 23 against the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, establishing the start of the team’s downhill spiral.
Texas State’s first loss of their current streak came at the hands of the first-place Arkansas State Red Wolves, who won by 15. The Bobcats not only struggled from the three-point line but had no answers for the Red Wolves’ three-pointers. Arkansas State made 11 threes on 25 attempts.
The Bobcats’ second loss came from Louisiana, with a 70-61 final score. The Bobcats lost by only nine but shot 17 threes, only making four of those.
An almost identical rematch against Arkansas State in the third loss revealed the Bobcats’ struggles. Losing the game by 11, the Bobcats had many chances to go on a spree and put the game away. Although they made the same amount of threes as Arkansas State (8), they missed five more. On top of that, they lost the battle in the paint, getting outrebounded and outscored on almost every possession in the second half.
In their most recent two games, the Bobcats fell short to Old Dominion and Central Michigan in what appeared to be a lackluster performance on all ends. They were outrebounded 45-27 in an 11-point loss to Old Dominion and outplayed in a 15-point loss to Central Michigan due to poor shooting. The Bobcats looked inefficient.
Why are the Bobcats falling apart towards the end of the season after a nice 12-8 (5-3 in conference play) start?
Besides the decline in efficiency, Texas State is dealing with the injury bug. Senior forward Tyrel Morgan and junior guard Mark Drone, who both bring elite point scoring to the Bobcats, have not touched the floor since the Georgia State win on Jan. 15.
Drone, who played three games this season, averaging 18 points, helped the Bobcats get two out of the three wins from Jan. 9-15 before getting hurt. Morgan, a top-three scorer on the team averaging 14 points this season, went down in the same game as Drone and has not returned since. Although star power is not relied on in college basketball, Texas State is dearly missing those two key players.
Needing additional offensive help, better rebounding and more defensive stops are lessons from this losing streak. The Bobcats have six games left in the regular season, all conference games.
