Texas Border Business
RIO GRANDE VALLEY – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros men’s basketball team opened the 2021-22 season with a 74-59 victory over the Texas A&M International Dustdevils in front of a raucous crowd of 1,711 on Tuesday at the UTRGV Fieldhouse.
Junior LaQuan Butler led the Vaqueros (1-0) with 19 points. Junior Justin Johnson scored 13 points with a career-high seven rebounds, a career-high tying four assists, a career-high tying three steals and a career-high tying two blocks. Graduate student Marek Nelson scored 10 points with a career-high three steals. Graduate student Mike Adewunmi finished with nine points and 10 rebounds. Freshman RayQuan Taylor scored nine points with eight rebounds and two blocks.
Greg Bowie II led the Dustdevils with 17 points and two steals. La-Quiem Walker finished with 12 points, four rebounds and two blocks.
Butler scored five of the game’s first 11 points as the Vaqueros built a 9-2 lead.
The Dustdevils pulled within 13-9, but Taylor responded with a three to spark a 13-5 run and put the Vaqueros up 26-14.
The Dustdevils answered with a 10-5 run to make the score 31-24. Then, with the score 33-26, Taylor and sophomore Quinton Johnson II made layups to push the Vaqueros’ lead to 37-26.
Nelson closed the first half with a layup and then Adewunmi opened the second half with layups as the Vaqueros scored eight-straight points to go up 47-32.
The Dustdevils scored the next six points to pull within nine before a Taylor layup sparked a 7-1 run to put the Vaqueros up 54-39.
The Dustdevils got as close as 59-48 before a pair of Butler threes bookended a 9-4 run to push the game out of reach.
UTRGV is back in action on Friday at 8 p.m. at Arizona, a team receiving votes in the preseason AP poll, in a game that will be broadcast on PAC-12 Networks.
