Cold-shooting Enchantment exit in first round of TBT

When a roster of shooters can’t hit a shot, the results are anything but enchanting.

Bryce Alford, Scott Bamforth and Anthony Mathis — three of the more respected outside shooters in the 64-team TBT (The Basketball Tournament) field — made a combined 2-of-15 (13.3%) shots in the first half Friday in Houston, digging The Enchantment into far too deep a hole to escape in a frustrating 60-53 loss to Once a Bronco, a team of former Boise State players.

Enchantment’s cold shooting Friday in the humid Fertitta Center, home of the Houston Cougars, made Tuesday’s sloppy exhibition game in the Pit against a squad of former Lobo players look to be more of a foreshadowing than an anomaly.

After making it to the round of 16 one year ago in Lubbock, Enchantment is one-and-done this year in the annual $1 million, winner-take-all TBT.

In front of his hometown Houston crowd, former Lobo forward Morris Udeze had a game-high 17 points, but was just 3-of-8 at the free throw line — proving to be too much of a liability for head coach Kenny Thomas to keep in late in the game as Once a Bronco held off a second-half charge from the eight-man Enchantment roster.

After Troy Simons hit a 3-pointer on the opening possession of the game, Enchantment didn’t hit another triple in the half. Once a Bronco led 14-9 after one quarter and 31-18 at halftime.

Enchantment hit 8-of-22 shots (24.2%) in the first half and was just 1-of-7 (14.3%) from 3-point range. Once a Bronco had seven of their 10 steals in the first half and held an 11-2 advantage in points off turnovers.

But the former Broncos didn’t exactly light up the stat sheet in the opening half themselves, shooting just 38.7% and seeing a 13-point halftime lead quickly diminish to one as Enchantment made a concerted effort to get Udeze the ball in the post after halftime, which then opened up the outside.

Bamforth, the Del Norte High graduate and star of the past two years of Enchantment play, hit his first shot of the game with 6:03 left in the third and then back-to-back Mathis 3s with 2:38 and 2:17 left in the quarter made the score 35-34.

Boise State would keep the Lobos at arms length the rest of the way.

Once a Bronco’s Thomas Bropleh hit three of his four 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and finished with a team-high 14 points to go along with five rebounds. Justinian Jessup added 12 points and six rebounds, and length that seemed to cause plenty of problems for Enchantment’s guards. The 2015 Mountain West Player of the Year, Derrick Marks, who scored 30 and 31 points in his final two games against the Lobos that year, had 11 points, three rebounds and three assists and made plenty of key plays in the final period.

Once a Bronco led 52-47 at the final media timeout of the fourth quarter, when the TBT’s unique Elam Ending format kicked in. At that point, the clock is turned off and a target score of eight points higher than the leading team’s score is established —in this case 60. Then, the first team to 60 wins.

By that time, the frustration had set in for Enchantment with silly fouls and a loss of composure at times when calls didn’t go their way (there was at least one out of bounds that was clearly wrong, but there are no reviews in TBT play).

Leading 59-53, Jessup drew a foul that didn’t sit well with Enchantment players after back-to-back possessions of feeling they had been on the wrong end of bad calls. Even before he hit the would-be game-winning free throw, Simons and Bamforth were venting their frustration with the game officials with Bamforth getting called for a technical when he knocked the ball out of the referee’s hands.

In the end, the poor shooting and turnovers had more to do with Friday’s outcome than the officiating.

Udeze’s 17 points led the Enchantment. Mathis ended up with 12 points and Bamforth with 11 points and six rebounds. Alford, the La Cueva High graduate, shot just 1-of-9 with two points, but also had a team-best six assists and tied with Bamforth and Joey Brunk for team-highs in rebounds with six.

Enchantment falls to 3-4 in TBT all time — 0-1 in 2021, 1-1 in 2022, 2-1 in 2023 and 0-1 in 2024.

Friday marked Once A Bronco’s first win in TBT after going one-and-done in the Pit in the 2022 TBT held in Albuquerque.

IN OTHER ACTION: In the game preceding Enchantment-Bronco in Houston, former Lobo Vance Jackson scored 15 points on 5-of-15 shooting (5-of-13 from 3-point range) and had four rebounds and three assists in Team Challenge ALS’ 69-67 win over The Program NYC for Autism.

Jackson was set to play for Enchantment in 2023, but backed out a week prior to the event.

In the last game of the day in Houston, former Lobo guard Saquan Singleton (at UNM for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons) started for Austin’s Own, a team of primarily University of Texas alumni, but was held scoreless with four rebounds, and assist and a steal in a 71-60 loss to regional host Forever Coogs, a team of Houston Cougar alumni. Former Lobo Jachai Simmons (played at UNM in the 2017-18 season) was listed on the Austin’s Own roster, but did not play.