Instead of waking up for a day of math, science and history, local students played hooky at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park
The Austin Spurs taught a few lessons to the Motor City Cruise in a 102-94 victory Thursday afternoon during the team’s school day-themed game.
The word of today’s game was second-chance points and the number was zero — the amount of second-chance points the Spurs held the Cruise to in the first half. Austin bounced back from Tuesday’s loss to the Oklahoma City Blue to close out a strong stretch in February.
“A lot of it for us was like not falling behind early, knowing that we play well as the games go on,” Spurs guard Donovan Williams said. “But history has told us, these past three or four (school day) games, we put ourselves in a hole that we had to come dig out of. We did a good job of not digging that hole and being aggressive.”
The Spurs did it without G League Player of the Week, Harrison Ingram, who was out because of soreness in pregame shoot-around.
Williams paced the team with 26 points, including a steal off Cruise forward Bobi Klintman that led to a breakaway dunk with 7:17 left in the first quarter, followed by an eruption from the young cheering section.
“You see, it’s on the rim and you shoot the three and can score on all different levels when (Williams is) attacking the rim like that,” head coach Jacob Chance said after the game. “It’s a great dynamic for our offense.”
Fans have many strategies to distract free-throw shooters in basketball, but a stadium filled with elementary and middle school students may be among the most effective.
The Cruise finished 56.3% from the free-throw line compared with the Spurs’ 70.4%, which still falls below Austin’s season average of 80.5%. It wasn’t the Spurs’ cleanest performance, but it was enough for the win.
“We’ll use the energy to our favor,” Chance said about the energy from the crowd.
The game was sloppy overall, with both teams committing more turnovers than their season averages. Motor City capitalized on those turnovers more, but shot just 37.2% from the field.
The Spurs will need all the help they can get entering the final month of the regular season. Austin sits in the fifth seed but is only 1.5 games out of the top spot in the Western Conference, currently held by the Mexico City Capitanes. With crunch time approaching, the team appears to be heating up at the right moment.
“Now, this point in time in the season, where the anxiety could kind of pick up a little bit more … for me, I just kind of let go,” Williams said. “I’m always trying to make sure I’m focusing on things that I can control.”
Austin will face the Memphis Hustle this Sunday at 7:00 p.m. at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park.
