SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The Thunderbird men's basketball team ventured back out on the road Thursday night in Sacramento, California against the Sacramento State Hornets, and ultimately fell to their Big Sky foe 84-73.   

Following the loss the T-Birds sit at 12-11 on the season, and 7-7 in the Big Sky Conference.

The Thunderbirds started very hot, and jumped out to a 14 point lead with 6:56 left in the opening half. The Hornets responded, however, and had the contest tied up at 25-25 in just over three minutes of action. The Thunderbirds won the final minutes, and took a 33-32 team into the halftime break.

Despite the T-Birds holding leads early in the second half, the Hornets were able to find their momentum over the final 20 minutes and outscored SUU 52-40 to take the victory.

"We got some of the wrong guys in foul trouble," SUU head coach Todd Simon said after the contest. "Cam (Oluyitan) and Andre (Adams) didn't get a chance to play much in the first half, and Cam only played 16 minutes. That took us out of our rhythm, so we've got to do a little better job of keeping those guys out of foul trouble and we weren't able to get stops in the second half. They kept scoring, especially around the rim, and when teams score like that on you you're not able to get transition buckets."

Brandon Better led the scoring effort for the Thunderbirds, scoring 19 points and finishing 7-of-7 from the free throw line. Andre Adams finished with 14 points, and shot 7-of-10 from the field. Jacob Calloway was the third T-Bird in double figures, finishing the night with 11.

Joshua Patton scored 22 for the Hornets in the contest, followed by Marcus Graves with 19.

The Thunderbirds will be back in action on Saturday at 8 p.m. MT as they travel to Portland, Oregon to face off against the Portland State Vikings.

"They're a pressing team so if we're going to play our tempo we can't turn the ball over," Simon said looking forward to PSU. "We've got to keep them off the glass, they're a phenomenal offensive rebounding team and we've got to do better defensively guarding one-on-one and not needing help."

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Read all about the Thunderbirds on www.suutbirds.com.

Individual game tickets for the 2018-19 Season are available at www.tbirdtickets.com or at the America First Event Center Ticket Office.