BROWNWOOD, Texas – The Howard Payne men's basketball team downs the University of Texas at Dallas 78-66 Thursday evening in conference action at the Brownwood Coliseum.

The Howard Payne bench would outscore UT-Dallas' 35-13 and the Jackets outrebounded the Comets 39-30 for the game.

The Yellow Jackets found themselves down early to start the game but battled back from a 10-0 deficit to gain the lead. Howard Payne led 19-17 on a Ty Davis three-pointer with 9:30 remaining in the first half.

Howard Payne outrebounded UTD 20-16 and forced 10 turnovers to lead 37-28 at the halftime break.

The Jackets heated up in the second half connecting on 53.3% of their shots. HPU pulled ahead by as much as 16 with minutes to play in the game. The Jackets would go on to claim their seventh conference victory of the year 78-66.

Brandon Gould led HPU with a game high 17 points and five assists. Sterling Smoak scored 14 points off the bench, Smoak was 8 of 10 from the free-throw line. Jorden Young followed with 12 points on 4 of 6 shooting from behind the arc.

UTD was led by Rafael Farley with 15 points. Matthew Medell had 12 and Kyle Coulter followed with 10 points.

Howard Payne is now 7-10 overall and 7-5 in American Southwest Conference action. UT-Dallas stands at 13-5 overall and 8-5 in conference. Howard Payne will be in Abilene this Saturday taking on Hardin-Simmons at 3:00 pm.
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