COMMERCE – Texas A&M-Commerce knew it faced a challenge in the first round of the Lone Star Conference men’s basketball tournament Tuesday night.

The No. 8 seed Lions had lost to their opponent, No. 9 seed Arkansas-Fort Smith, on the road last Saturday afternoon to end the regular season. Tuesday night was a different story as TAMUC defeated UAFS, 77-73, inside The Field House.

TAMUC advances to the quarterfinals of the LSC tournament where they will meet No. 1 seed West Texas A&M at 6 p.m. on Friday night. UAFS ends its season at 13-16 overall.

“It’s win or go home obviously,” Texas A&M-Commerce men’s head basketball coach Jaret von Rosenberg said. “I thought we had a good game plan and the thing about a good game plan is you have to have the guys buy into what we’re trying to do.

"It was a little different what we wanted to do tonight on defense and credit to our guys for executing our defensive game plan and getting enough stops to be successful.”

TAMUC also faced another challenge on Tuesday night in UAFS guard Brian Halums. Halums entered the game as the second leading scorer in NCAA Division II with 28.8 points per game.

Halums had little trouble scoring against TAMUC in their other two contest this season as he scored 44 points in the first contest at TAMUC and scored 39 points at home last Saturday.

“The key was that (Halums) is so hard to guard and he’s going to make plays. You can’t get frustrated when he makes plays,” von Rosenberg said. “Our plan was to stay with it, keep making him work and earn every bucket. Deonta (Terrell) is a big, strong guy and I think he wore him down a little bit.”

Senior guard Deonta Terrell drew the defensive assignment on Tuesday night against Halums and came up with a huge performance.

“The motivation was to get to Frisco,” Terrell said. “I felt like my offense didn’t matter to me tonight. If you stop (Halums) that’s pretty much their whole team.”

Halums was able to score 29 points on Tuesday night but he had to work for his points as he was held without a field goal for a 15:04 span that began with 8:33 remaining in the first half. Halums scored only one field goal attempt in a total of 19:04.

Terrell was also big on the offensive end as he finished his all-around performance with 15 points.

TAMUC will enjoy this win, but their focus must turn to the Buffs first thing tomorrow morning.

“We have to come out Friday night and defend and play hard,” Terrell said. “We have to play like it’s the last quarter on every possession and buy into the game plan.”

“We have nothing to lose and that’s a good position to be in because I think you can play free,” von Rosenberg said. “They’re the best team that we played against this year at cashing in on mistakes you make.”