St. Mary's (TX) SMU-TX 0-2,0-0 Lone Star

Regis (CO) Regis 1-1,0-0 RMAC

St. Mary's (TX) SMU-TX

0-2,0-0 Lone Star

Final

Nov. 12, 2022

Regis (CO) Regis

1-1,0-0 RMAC

Score By Periods
Team	1	2	F
St. Mary's (TX) SMU-TX	28	28	56
Regis (CO) Regis	24	36	60

Summary
Box Score

Billy Saunders, Regis Athletics

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | Nov 12 | David Wilson, Assistant AD-Communications

Rangers' defense locks up Rattlers in 60-56 win to conclude RMAC-Lone Star Conference Challenge

DENVER, Colo. — Anchored by a strong defensive effort, the Regis University men's basketball team grinded out its first win of the 2022-23 season on Saturday as it defeated St. Mary's University, 60-56, to conclude the RMAC-Lone Star Conference Challenge event inside the Regis Field House.

Saturday's win marked the fifth time since 2015 that a game between the Rangers (1-1 overall) and Rattlers (0-2 overall) has been decided by two possessions or less.

"That feels like Déjà vu. About every time we play St. Mary's there is a game like that," said Regis head men's basketball coach, Brady Bergeson. "This felt like as much of a bare-knuckle fight as it did a basketball game with how physical it was. They were really good defensively, but I thought we played just as hard, defensively. We really responded to some of the weak points we had on the court Friday."

HOW IT HAPPENED: Still working out some of the wrinkles on offense, the Rangers leaned on their defense through the game's opening 20 minutes to go into the half down 28-24. Regis shot 36 percent (9-of-25) in the first half, but held the visiting Rattlers to 33 percent (9-for-27) in the first half and just 33 percent (18-of-54) for the game.

In addition to their on-ball defense, the Rangers were stingy on the defensive glass; a major point of emphasis after allowing 12 offensive rebounds Friday evening in a 66-59 loss to No. 16 Lubbock Christian. St. Mary's was held to just one offensive rebound in the first half and five for the entire evening. As a team, Regis secured 33 defensive rebounds led by senior Aaron Bokol as he grabbed a career-high 14 boards on Saturday, 12 of which came on the defensive end.

"To only give up five offensive rebounds to that team is really a heck of an effort by our guys. We finished possessions much, much better tonight and that is what gave us a chance to do what we did," Bergeson said. "Bokol has a knack for it and he's terrific that way. And it was absolutely a team effort in how we rebounded tonight in terms of the block outs, physicality and mind set to do that."

In the second half, the Rangers' offense was able to play complimentary basketball as they shot 6-of-12 (50%) from the floor and were a sizzling 18-for-22 (82%) at the free-throw line over the final 20 minutes.
After trailing by as many as nine points, St. Mary's briefly rallied back to take a 46-45 lead with 5:21, but Regis responded the very next trip down the floor as sophomore guard CJ Reed buried a 3-pointer to give RU the lead for good at 48-46.

St. Mary's would never inch any closer than two points the rest of the way as the Rangers concluded the evening going 12-for-12 from the free throw line over the final five minutes; a marked improvement from the tough 6-for-18 performance at the line just 24 hours prior.

Graduate student guard David Simental was 14-for-14 from the free throw line — all coming in the second half — and led all Regis players with 24 points.

"I don't know what you'd chalk (Friday's) free-throw shooting performance up to. We're a good shooting team and should be a good shooting team, so we'll call it first-game jitters," Bergeson jested. "David was as good as you can be from the free-throw line tonight and it helped us close things outs."

GAME NOTES

Sophomore Aidan Sevilla had a strong performance in his 29 minutes, scoring nine points on 4-for-7 shooting while adding two assists, four rebounds and three blocks from the guard position.
Reed and Bokol rounded out the Rangers top scorers with eight points and seven points, respectively
The Rangers held a 13-7 advantage in bench points and finished with a 20-12 lead in fast break points despite losing the turnover battle, 24-12

UP NEXT: Regis will take its first road trip of 2022-23 next weekend when it plays a pair of afternoon games against San Francisco State University (2 p.m. Saturday) and Holy Names University (2 p.m. Sunday) out in California.
The Saturday game will be a rematch between Regis and SFSU after the Rangers earned a 78-75 win in Denver last November (11/18/21).

"It's good to get the boys out on the road, in a different setting and throw some different stimuli at them. I expect two hard battles and it's good to do a road trip like this early in the year," Bergeson said. "We got to get a little better this week in practice and I think we'll be alright."

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