Nottingham, Pearson lift Texas St. over Louisiana-Lafayette

SAN MARCOS, Texas (AP) — Tre Nottingham scored 17 points and Nijal Pearson hit the winning 3-pointer with 1:21 to play and Texas State defeated Louisiana-Lafayette 64-62 after blowing an 18-point second-half lead on Saturday night.

After Pearson’s basket, Akiem Daschner stole the ball with 1:02 to go. The Bobcats missed a 3-point attempt at 38 seconds but Eric Terry snagged the rebound. Texas State ran the clock down to under 10 seconds before another miss but Justin Miller’s 3-point attempt at the buzzer came up short for the Ragin’ Cajuns.

Louisiana-Lafayette, down 35-23 at the half, used a 13-3 run to cut the deficit to single digits with less than eight minutes to go. An 8-2 run, capped by JaKeenan Gant dunk on an ally-oop feed from Marcus Stroman, put the Ragin’ Cajuns ahead 62-61 at the 1:40 mark.

Pearson and Eric Terry had 13 points apiece for Texas State (22-6, 11-4 Sun Belt Conference), which took over first place alone after Georgia State fell at Coastal Carolina.

Cedric Russell had a career-high 25 points for Louisiana-Lafayette (16-11, 7-7) and Gant had 13 points and a career-high 17 rebounds.