The Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi men’s basketball program opened the season with a 102-64 win against Texas Lutheran at the American Bank Center on Nov. 9.

New head coach Steve Lutz led the Islanders to victory and was awarded the game ball by Director of Athletics Jon Palumbo after the game while his players cheered with excitement. 

“I was very pleased with their effort and happy to see them rewarded for all their hard work since the summer,” said Lutz. 

TAMU-CC managed to take an 18-2 lead in the first half as they shot 40-68 (.588) from the floor and had a 42-23 rebounding advantage overall. 

“I thought our defensive execution in the first half was much better than the second half,” said Lutz. “It’s always hard to play those games where you get up to maintain the same intensity and tenacity defensively as you did in the first half, but overall I was pleased with their play.” 

Lutz continued by saying the Islanders turned the ball over too much which is their point of emphasis to improve on. “Our goals are to win the conference and to win the tournament,” said Lutz.

The Islanders scored triple-figures with 18 points scored by junior Trevian Tennyson, freshman Jordan Roberts with 14 points, senior Myles Smith, senior De’Lazarus Keys, and sophomore Stephen Faramade with 10 points each. Junior Terrion Murdix was close to hitting double-figures but ended up scoring eight points with his 10 assists that helped the team.

De’Lazarus Keys, senior forward for the Islanders, recorded 3-4 offensive rebounds by team and defensive rebounds by team, totaling seven rebounds along with one steal. Keys said he was proud of the way his teammates played as a whole with their defense and sharing the ball to score. Keys also stated that he hopes to come back to the court stronger next game as they continue to achieve wins throughout the season to win the conference and go to the NCAA Tournament.

“I think we did really well,” said Keys. “We started off aggressive, we started playing defense…We actually played like what we worked for. It started dying down towards the end of the first quarter, but we picked it up in the second half.” 

The Islanders will be traveling on the road to San Antonio on Nov. 16 to play against IUPUI  at 5 p.m. for the first game in the UTSA tournament.