Turner nets 34 points, Texans swat Thunderbirds 80-71 Monday

LEVELLAND — Kieves Turner poured in 34 points and snagged eight rebounds as the South Plains College men's basketball team swatted New Mexico Junior College 80-71 Monday night at the Texan Dome.

South Plains improves to 9-7 on the year and 2-1 in the Western Junior College Athletic Conference and will be on the road Thursday in Clarendon at 7:30 p.m. at the Bulldog Gymnasium.

"The game completely changed in the second half," South Plains head coach Steve Green said. "We got force-fed the first 20 minutes, then turned it around and got on a roll. We made some smart plays and made some shots, and we didn't turn the ball over in the second half like we did in the first half."

Trailing 33-28 at the midway point, the Texans flipped the script with a  27-7 run through the first 10 minutes of the second half to take a commanding 55-40 lead on a free throw from Turner with just under 10 minutes to play. The Thunderbirds would try and claw their way back as they cut the deficit to 10, 64-54 on a 3 from Elijah Beard with 5:06 to go.

The Thunderbirds would get as close as eight, 69-61 on a layup from Jordan Booker with 1:49 remaining, but it wouldn't be enough as the Texans iced the game at the free throw line over the next 90 seconds.

"I think we were able to get ahead in the second half and they started to feel like they had to start shooting and catch up," Green said. "We got behind early and finally were able to settle in a little bit. This team waits to see how the game is going, which is not a good thing. We told them we felt like we could drive every guy on their team, but we were so tentative we couldn't get the ball down the floor. We have to start cutting loose and start making some plays."

Turner finished 9 of 17 from the floor, 4 of 8 from distance, and was 12 of 13 from the free throw line over 40 minutes. Savion Gallion netted 12 points for South Plains, while DJ Avery and Khalifa Sakho each finished with nine.