Dec. 14, 2010

Box Score

HOUSTON - Junior forward Olu Ashaolu recorded his sixth double-double of the season as the Louisiana Tech men's basketball team defeated Houston Baptist 80-57 on Tuesday in Houston.

Louisiana Tech shot a season-high 53.8 percent from the field and dominated in the post with a 46-14 points in the paint advantage.

"Anytime we can get a win on the road, we are excited," Tech head coach Kerry Rupp said. "We tried to be more active on the defensive end and I thought we did that for a while tonight. When you play hard, you have to play smart as well. It's a learning process for a lot of our guys, but I thought we had good energy today."

Ashaolu missed just three shots all night as he was 10-for-13 from the field including one three-pointer in his only attempt for 21 points. He also recorded a season-high 13 rebounds.

Freshman guard Cordarius Johnson scored a season-best 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field. Joining the Bulldogs in double figures was senior guard DeAndre Brown who finished with 14 points.

Despite shooting 58.1 percent from the field in the first half and holding HBU to 37 percent, the Bulldogs held just an eight point halftime lead, 43-35. Tech held its biggest lead of the half after Johnson hit one of his two three-pointers in the game at the 12:08 mark to go ahead 19-6.

Tech started to take over the game in the second half as it scored eight unanswered points to take a 57-40 lead with 14:37 remaining. The run was capped off by an Ashaolu alley-oop dunk off a pass from freshman guard Lonnie Smith, who made his first-career start in the game.

Tech maintained a lead of around 20 points for the remainder of the contest and ended the game with its largest lead of the night as the Bulldogs improved their record to 8-4 on the season. The win also snapped a three-game road losing streak.

HBU was led by Andrew Gonzalez who scored a game-high 33 points including five three-pointers. The Huskies shot 31.6 percent from the field and fell to 1-8 on the season.

Louisiana Tech next hosts UT-Arlington on Saturday at 7 p.m.