Box Score | Bill Coen Postgame Comments

Sophomore guard Jonathan Lee scored a career-high 22 points and went on a personal 9-0 run to lead a furious second-half rally as Northeastern erased a 17-point deficit to capture an 86-78 win over Texas State in men's basketball action in the fifth-place game of the Cancun Governor's Cup at the Poliforum Juarez in Cancun, Mexico.

"They were very effective really attacking our bigs off the dribble," said Northeastern head coach Bill Coen. "They have great quickness. I thought in the first half, they had an advantage at that so we went to a smaller lineup hoping to settle them down on the defensive end and it did that and we were able to generate some offense with that small lineup."

Lee shot 7-of-8 from the floor and also had a team-high five rebounds and four assists for the Huskies (4-6), who close out their Mexican road trip with back-to-back wins. Three other Huskies also scored in double figures as Northeastern put the most points on the board in over four years, since an 86-70 win over Towson on Feb. 25, 2006.

Senior guard Chaisson Allen tallied 18 points and six steals, the most steals in a game by any player in the Colonial Athletic Association this season. Freshman Ryan Pierson netted 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the floor and sophomore guard Joel Smith added 16 points.

Senior center Jonathan Sloan notched 14 points on a perfect 6-of-6 shooting performance from the floor to lead a balanced scoring effort from the Bobcats (3-9), who saw senior guard Ryan White post 13 points, five rebounds, four assists and two steals, while J.B. Conley, Travis Jones and Matt Staff added 11 points each.

White drained a three to open the scoring for the Bobcats, but the Huskies struck back with back-to-back buckets from senior forward Vinny Lima and Lee. Sloan put the Bobcats back on top with a fast-break layup.

After Texas State built a four-point lead, Pierson scored a two-pointer and Smith hit a long jumper to tie the score at 12-12, but Staff hit a pair of threes to kick off an extended 19-3 run that put the Bobcats up by 16 with 6:45 to go in the first half.

Lima dropped in a layup for the Huskies with six seconds left in the first half that cut the Texas State lead to 48-34 at the half.

A 7-0 run for the Bobcats early in the second half pushed the lead to 17 points, but the Huskies chipped away until Lee scored nine unanswered points, capped by a layup that put the Huskies up, 75-74. Northeastern made it a 14-0 run overall with freshman guard Alex Harris and Smith adding layups before a free throw from Lee gave the Huskies an 81-75 lead with 32 seconds to go. Northeastern hit enough free throws the rest of the way to hold off the Bobcats.

Both sides posted outstanding shooting numbers. Texas State shot 27-of-43 (62.8 percent) from the field, which was the best shooting performance against the Huskies in over two years, but the Huskies were 28-of-48 (58.3 percent) from the floor, including 13-of-20 (65.0 percent) in the second half. The Bobcats outrebounded Northeastern by a 26-20 margin.

The Huskies are back in action on Wednesday at 9:30 p.m., facing Princeton in the semifinals of the UCF Holiday Classic in Orlando, Fla.