SAN ANGELO – Good teams slip up every once in a while and lose games like this. Great teams take on the challenge, endure and then win.

The No. 7-ranked Angelo State Rams fought off an upset bid by West Texas A&M on Wednesday with a 77-68 Lone Star Conference victory which extended their program-record winning streak to 15 games and also pushed them to 14-0 at the Junell Center this season.

ASU (20-1, 8-0 LSC), which trailed by as many as eight points in the first half and saw a 10-point lead trimmed to four with 30 seconds remaining in the game, prevailed to reach the 20-win milestone for the first time since the 2008-09 season and for only the fifth time in program history. The Rams pulled out the win with defense, limiting the Buffs (13-9, 3-5 LSC) to 38.2 percent shooting and to only 27.3 percent (6 of 22) on their 3-pointers. WT leads the conference in 3-pointers made and percentage, but were limited to 3 of 11 from beyond the arc in both halves against the Rams who shot 51.0 percent from the field.  

"I thought this was a really gutsy college basketball game," ASU head coach Chris Beard said. "Both teams were playing really hard and there was very little flow to the game. It must have been a really tough game to officiate as well. The bottom line is that there were two teams who were playing really hard and both teams wanted to win. I thought our defense really stepped up for us tonight and held another team to under 40 percent shooting."

Angelo State remains atop the LSC standings as the only unblemished team, while Tarleton State earned a 58-53 win at Midwestern State to avenge a previous loss to the Mustangs. The result in Wichita Falls gives MSU and TSU two losses each in conference play and puts them in a tie for second in the standings behind the Rams.  

Chris Jones scored a career-best 25 points and also added four assists and four rebounds for the Rams, while Demario Mayfield recorded his ninth double-double of the season with 20 points and 13 rebounds. Mayfield, who went 6 of 10 from the field and 7-for-10 from the free-throw line, also added six assists. Jones shot 9 of 13 from the field and made seven of his eight shots from the free-throw line.

"We came out flat and were not running the offense that we were coached to run," Jones said. "They were a good team, but we weren't able to get the looks we wanted and we couldn't get stops on the other end. It was a sloppy game, but we gutted it out with some good plays and stops down the stretch. We have to keep progressing and this is a good game for our team to learn from."

The Buffs came out strong and led the game 15-11 midway through the first half before the Rams made a run and took the lead at 20-19 on a Jones jumper with seven minutes remaining in the first half. After the teams exchanged a pair of baskets, ASU went on a run which was sparked by a Marsell Holden 3-pointer and then a dunk by Mayfield to give the Rams a 32-27 lead with a minute to play in the first half. Jones would hit a shot with two seconds remaining in the first half to take the teams into halftime with Angelo State leading 37-30. West Texas A&M came out strong in the second half though, going on a 7-0 run to tie the game, but the Buffs would never be able to regain their first-half lead.

ASU went on a 7-2 run, sparked once again by a Holden 3-pointer, to take a 48-41 lead with just under 10 minutes to play and were up 67-57 on a pair of Mayfield free throws with 2:53 to play. The 10-point advantage dwindled when David Chavlovich drilled a 3-pointer and Carl White hit a jumper to take the score to 67-62 with two minutes remaining. Jones would answer with a pair of jumpers to give ASU a 71-64 advantage, but WT continued to stay in the fight and brought it to within four with a Miles Gatewood jumper with 30 seconds to play. Off a missed free throw, Mayfield grabbed the rebound, made the short-range shot and then hit a free throw to push the lead back to seven with 24 seconds remaining.

Holden joined Jones and Mayfield in double figures with 11 points after hitting two 3-pointers and making five free throws and Thomas Brandsma added eight points off the bench. Raijon Kelly scored four second-half points, including a 3-pointer to give the Rams a 60-52 lead with six minutes to play. DeQuavious Wagner scored five points and had two assists off the ASU which outscored WT's bench 15-5 in the game.

"We have a team with a great group of senior who get a lot of credit, which they deserve, but tonight we do not win this game without Thomas Brandsma," Beard said. "I thought he played like a really experienced player for us tonight and made some huge baskets and passes and really guarded down the stretch. We're going to need contributions from everyone on our team the rest of the way if we want to have the type of season we all want to have."

The nine-point win snapped a 13-game streak of double-digit wins by the Rams and was only the second of 20 victories which was a single-digit victory. The Rams, who are third in the nation in defense, have now held opponents to under 40 percent shooting in 12 of 21 games this season and are 25-2 at home over the past two seasons. ASU and WT finished the game with 26 fouls each and shot a combined 65 free throws. The Rams went 23 of 32 from the free-throw line, while the Buffs shot 20 of 33 on their free throws. The foul total was the second most by the Rams this season, one off the 27 fouls committed last Saturday against Texas A&M-Kingsville.

"The glaring problem for us tonight was that we committed way to many fouls," Beard said. "You can't put a great shooting team like that on the free-throw line like we did tonight. They made us pay for us, but it was a good win in the month of February for our team."

The Rams return to action this weekend with a road game against Eastern New Mexico in Portales, New Mexico on Saturday and will then travel to Stephenville to face Tarleton State next Wednesday.