Playing in their first American Southwest Conference Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament since 2018, the Howard Payne Yellow Jackets earned their first postseason victory since 2015 by an 81-71 count over the East Texas Baptist Tigers Tuesday night at the Brownwood Coliseum.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said HPU head coach Nadir Dalleh, a former standout for the Yellow Jackets. “I played here in the mid-90s and getting that feeling again and getting these kids in, it was a great crowd tonight, and a great atmosphere. That’s always something you always want as player. It was a great game tonight and it was fun to keep it going.”
Junior Hudson Johnson, the top HPU scorer with 22 points on the night, added, “This means a lot for sure. The past couple of years have been a little rough. The guys have all bought in so it’s nice to get a win. It’s a good feeling.”
Regarding the crowd support the Yellow Jackets received, junior Armonie Ramey, who posted a double-double of 21 points and 14 rebounds, said, “It’s nice to put on for Brownwood. We’re slowly getting more and more people every game and I feel like they’re happy to watch us and they’re helping us win, also. They give us a lot of energy and that gets into the opponents’ head and that benefits us a lot.”
An early double-digit advantage for the Yellow Jackets (13-13) was reduced to one point twice in the second half by ETBU (6-20), the final time at 58-57 with 10:42 remaining.
“That’s been our M.O. the whole year,” Dalleh said. “The thing I harped on in timeouts is we can’t keep giving them second-chance points. They had 17 in the game and I think they all came in about a five-minute span there in the second half. They were getting every rebound and I challenged them to cut that off. I made that the selling point, if we get a rebound and run, their big guys couldn’t stay with us.”
It wasn’t a rebound, but a block by Carter May of a JT Curry layup attempt that led to an outlet pass to Ramey, who drained a three-pointer that pushed the Yellow Jackets’ lead to 65-57, forced an ETBU timeout, and firmly swung the momentum back in HPU’s favor.
That sequence capped a run of seven straight points for the Yellow Jackets and was part of a 19-4 surge that pushed the advantage to 77-61 with 4:01 left in the contest.
“It was definitely a big time play and you have to make big time plays if you want to win these games,” Johnson said. “We’re going to need to continue to do that.”
The Yellow Jackets opened the game with the first 11 points and held ETBU scoreless for the initial 5:11 of the contest, as Howard Payne never trailed at any point.
“That was pretty big,” Ramey said. “We’d love to start every game like that, it picks up the energy, and the crowd helps us out a lot, too.”
Howard Payne was victorious despite being held 19 points below its season scoring average, as the 81-point output was the fewest in a Yellow Jacket win during the 2024-25 campaign.
“This was our third time playing them so they knew what to expect and tried to slow us down, but we still picked up the pace a lot,” Ramey said.
The Jackets split their previous two meetings with ETBU, falling 108-101 in Marshall on Jan. 18 while picking up a 119-89 victory in Brownwood on Feb. 6.
Along with 22 points from Johnson and 21 from Ramey, Trey Jackson chipped in 11 points followed by 10 from May, six each from Riley Fornerette and Jordan McClendon, three from Carter Eddy and two points from Nathan Scott.
The Yellow Jackets shot 41 percent (33 of 81) from the floor despite converting just 13 percent (3 of 23) of their three-pointers, as HPU owned a 50-44 edge in points in the paint and 23-13 advantage in fast break points.
ETBU knocked 37 percent (27 of 74) of its shots and 21 percent (3 of 14) of its three-pointers, but committed 16 turnovers to only nine for Howard Payne.
Jason Justice scored a game-high 30 points for the Tigers and Curry chipped in 13 points.
The Yellow Jackets advance to the semifinals of the ASC Tournament in Marshall to face Hardin-Simmons at 2:30 p.m. Friday. HPU has fallen twice to the Cowboys, 96-94, in Brownwood on Jan. 23 and 102-92 in Abilene Feb. 13.
Regarding the key to getting past Hardin-Simmons, Dalleh said, “Rebound. We can’t give up second-chance points, we have to try and get the ball out of their best player’s hands, and we have to take care of us and take care of the ball. We have to get better by Friday.”
