When you take on the one of the top junior college basketball teams in the nation, as a coach you hope to have all your players.

Such was not the case on Saturday afternoon as the Coastal Bend College Cougars hosted the San Jacinto Gators basketball team that almost yearly is rated in the top ten nationally.

The Gators raced off to a 32-17 lead by the half and then captured the second half 52-24 to earn a 84-41 victory over the Cougars.

It was a close contest over the first few minutes as the Cougars hung in there with some decent outside shooting and tough defense. It was just a 9-8 ball game at about the four-minute mark.

The Gators’ size and shooting touch proved to be too much the rest of the way. Raining three-pointers at will and gathering all the rebounds, San Jacinto pulled away against the undermanned Cougars.

CBC head coach Bucky Hartman took care of some discipline problems around Thanksgiving and suspended four players from the contest and that left just nine Cougars dressed for the tilt.

“We knew coming in that we didn’t stand a good chance against San Jac. They are nationally ranked in the top ten and are well coached,” said Hartman.

“The first half we played well defensively but they didn’t miss a shot the second half. Once again we where out-sized because two of the players that where suspended were our big guys.”

The Cougars played hard but, short-handed and undersized, weren’t able to match up against the tough Gators.

Julian Stallworth had 14 points in the loss as did Alex Horne. Horne dished out a team-high six assists for the Cougars.

The Cougars are on the road in early December as they traveled to meet Richland College on Tuesday night and then had a Wednesday night contest with North Lake College. Saturday afternoon the Cougars will meet Brookhaven for a tilt before taking a break until next Wednesday evening when they meet Tomball College in their final road contest before coming home to take on Lee College on Dec. 17 at 6 p.m.