Texas rolls past Gardner-Webb as Matas Vokietaitis scores 16 points on his birthday

AUSTIN –  Matas Vokietaitis celebrated his 22nd birthday by scoring 16 points and getting seven rebounds in just 20 minutes as No. 7 Texas beat Gardner-Webb 98 -50 on Thursday night.

The 7-foot Vokietaitis has converted 15 of 17 shots in two games. 

Texas (2-0) outscored Gardner-Webb 54-10 in the paint. Gardner-Webb (0-2) went 12 minutes spanning the first and second half without a field goal. Texas outscored the Runnin’ Bulldogs 33-2 during that stretch.

Isaiah Johnson, a sophomore who transferred to Texas from Colorado, scored 15 points. Freshmen Marcus Spears Jr. and Joe Sterling each had 13.

Another freshman, Austin Goosby, scored 11 points and accounted for five of the Longhorns’ 13 steals. Sterling had three 3-pointers after making four in the season-opener against Chicago State on Monday.

“There’s a lot of things in a game like this that sometimes can go wrong when the score becomes lopsided,” Texas coach Sean Miller said. “But one of the things that that I liked about our team is I thought we were really consistent with our effort. Not perfect, but if you evaluated our defense and our effort level mid-second half, early first half, late in the game, start of the second half, I felt feel comfortable saying that I thought we had five guys that are really playing with effort and playing unselfish and playing to win.”

Mikhail Pocknett and Jamias Ferere led Gardner-Webb with 12 points apiece. The Runnin’ Bulldogs were out shot just 61% to 33%. They hit just 5 of 23 3-point attempts and committed 23 turnovers that Texas turned into 31 points. Texas had 28 fast-break points.

Texas made a 21-0 push to finish the first half with a lead of 54-20. Gardner Webb, picked to finish last in the nine-team Big South Conference by the league’s coaches, failed to score during the final six minutes of the half.

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This article originally published at Texas rolls past Gardner-Webb as Matas Vokietaitis scores 16 points on his birthday.