Men's Basketball Suffers 86-81 Home Opening Loss

SEGUIN, TX -- Despite a career high 29 points from sophomore guard Xavier Phillips (Austin/Dripping Springs), Texas Lutheran suffered an 86-81 loss to Hardin-Simmons in Friday night's season opener in Memorial Gymnasium.

Phillips, whose previous career high came in an 18-point effort against Southwestern (TX) in February, led all Bulldogs for the night, finishing 9-of-15 from the field, including 5-of-8 from behind the arc.

In addition to Phillips, Jamir Mason (Pearland/St. Thomas Episcopal) and Sebastian Andrade (El Paso/Americas High) also notched double figure scoring efforts, finishing with 17 and 15 points respectively.

Friday's contest saw 8 lead changes throughout but a closely contested first half gave way to a second half that saw the Cowboys lead by as much as 17 points midway through the second half which proved to be an insurmountable lead for the Bulldogs who could only get within 5 points late in the game.

The Bulldogs will wrap the opening weekend with more non-conference action against McMurry on Saturday at 3 PM. All streaming and stat links can be found on tlubulldogs.com