TYLER, Texas. – 40 minutes wasn't enough Friday evening at the Herrington Patriot Center as Texan Cade Mankle was one of three players in double figures for the eighth-ranked Colorado School of Mines men's basketball team in a 75-71 overtime win on the road against UT Tyler. Mankle finished the night with 14 points including five of the 11 points in the extra period as the Orediggers (2-1) outlasted the Patriots (0-3) in a match that tightened up after halftime and saw six ties and nine lead changes.
 
Sam Phipps scored the night's first points 20 seconds in before the teams combined to miss their next six shots in with a turnover mixed in as the action got off to a tepid start. Markus Pastorcic-Straun scored the first points of the night for Mines with two free throws at 17:43 that ended up keying off an 18-3 run all the way to around the 13-minute mark that saw Juani Dassie, Grant Pressly, Caleb Clark and Reagan Koch connect on four consecutive three-point attempts to balloon the lead to 18-5.
 
Jonathan Moore joined the three party before Majok Deng rattled off the next five including an old-fashioned three-point play to make it a 20-point lead at 28-8 with just under nine minutes in the half. To their credit, the Patriots rallied with a 9-2 run spanning nearly four minutes of game time starting with a Dontrell Hewlett jumper at 8:07 and ending with a pair of Hudson Anderson free throws at 4:11 t0 make it a 30-17 game.
 
A frenetic sequence following two Koch free throws and a dunk by Anderson saw three turnovers in under a minute, one of which resulted in a steal and score dunk by Koch to make it 34-19. UTT worked to trim the deficit in the final minutes of the half and used a 5-2 run to end the period to make it 36-24 after 20 minutes as Phipps and Akok Makar combined to go 2-3 from the floor in the final 2:18 as both teams hit the break shooting just 33% for the game.
 
The Orediggers and Patriots traded makes on the first four field goals of the half including a dunk to resume play by Alex Romack, but UTT started to make ground in trimming the deficit and by the under 16-minute media timeout trailed by eight at 42-34. Coming out of the break, eight straight points saw the home team draw level at 42 following a jumper from Hewlett to force a Mines timeout.
 
Riley Schroeder, making his season debut after missing both games last weekend, checked in coming out of the timeout and immediately provided some relief with his first field goal of the year to retake the 45-42. Cade Mankle buried his first three of the season moments after a second-chance bucket by Machar, but Nikolas Gustavson had no intentions of letting the Orediggers gain any breathing room as he flushed home a trey to make it 48-47 approaching the 10-minute mark.
 
Juan Pablo Carmago retook the lead for UTT with a layup at the 9:48 followed by a Jesse Fuller dunk on the next two possessions to make it a three-point lead, but a free throw from Pressly followed by a tip-in by Moore off a missed three-pointer from Koch saw the Orediggers draw back even at 51.
 
A make from Mankle thanks to Pressly saw Mines briefly retake the lead 53-51 before UTT scored six of the next eight as the advantage flipped again to 57-55 with four minutes remaining. A dunk from Phipps made it a four-point lead, but the Orediggers answered with back-to-back treys from Schroeder and Dassie to surge ahead 61-59. Machar and Dassie swapped three-pointers on the next possession for each team as with 90 seconds left, Mines found themselves ahead 64-62.
 
Following a flurry of subs, turnovers and missed three-pointers, the Patriots ended up with possession with 23 seconds remaining and coming out of a timeout found Carmago for a game-tying dunk with four seconds remaining. A last-second heave by Mankle was no good as the teams headed to overtime even at 64.
 
Mankle made up for two missed free throws to open the extra period with a second chance jumper following a board from Schroeder to score first but another three by Machar saw the score flip once again. Mankle then buried a three-ball on the next trip for Mines and after a miss on the other end, Schroeder connected from downtown for the third time to make it 72-67 with 3:20 to go.
 
UTT closed to within one following a pair of buckets from Hewlett and Jadin Penigar at 72-71 with 1:41 to play and had a shot to take the lead on a three by Hewlett in the final minute, but it rimmed out to Mankle for the rebound. It took three tries for Mines to score going back the other way as Alex Romack made it 74-71 on scramble underneath the hoop following an initial missed layup by Deng. A miss with six seconds left from Penigar was rebounded by Clark who closed the book on the game by sinking a free throw on the other end as a desperation three from Xavier McCord at the buzzer drew no foul and missed its mark as the Orediggers held on for the 75-71 win.
              
NOTABLES
-Mankle popped off for a season-high 14 points in the win on 6-11 shooting and 2-4 from three with four rebounds and three assists
-Deng just missed a double-double as he finished with 13 points highlighted by a 5-5 night at the free throw line and eight rebounds with two steals
-Dassie went for double-digits off the bench for the third straight game to start the season, netting 11 on 4-6 shooting and 3-4 from downtown
-Schroeder finished with nine in his first action of the season, all coming on three-pointers as he went 3-5 for the game with two rebounds
-Koch also went for nine on the strength of a 4-4 night at the charity stripe and added two steals, two rebounds and two assists
-Romack hauled down seven rebounds in the game including several key ones down the stretch to seal the win
-Seven different players finished the night with a three-point field goal for the Orediggers
-The Orediggers registered nine steals and three blocks defensively and scored 18 points off turnovers
 
UP NEXT
The Orediggers take on UT Dallas Saturday at 3 p.m. CT. to close out the weekend.

Fans can keep up with Mines men's basketball on X and Instagram at @minesmbb. They can also keep up with Colorado School of Mines Athletics all year long on Facebook, X and Instagram using the handle @MinesAthletics.