HUNTSVILLE — Sam Houston’s winning streak came to a screeching halt on Saturday night against a Lamar team playing with a chip on its shoulder.  

The Cardinals had received national media attention since Thursday, when video of first-year head coach Pat Knight’s postgame rant following a loss to Stephen F. Austin went viral.

In that video, Knight called out his six seniors for not giving their full effort or showing any signs of leadership over the course of the season.

Lamar responded with a 72-49 win over Sam Houston, as the Cardinal seniors scored all 44 of their second-half points and all but six of the points through the entire game.

Knight spoke after the game about his team being the type to respond under the most extreme situations. He said he would not have called his players out the way he did if he didn’t think they were equipped to respond to it.

“I put these guys in a terrible, tough spot on purpose because they handle it,” Knight said. “We’re 6-1, almost 7-0 after suspensions. We come back after bad losses and for some reason these guys respond the drastic stuff.”

Lamar senior guard and leading scorer Mike James was the player in the video who Knight interrupted while telling him he had no clue what it takes to win.

James, averaging 16.1 points a game on the season, lit Sam Houston up for 30 points, 22 coming in the second half and pushing the Cardinals far ahead of the Bearkats.

After the game, James said he didn’t get caught up in the media circus and that he had not even seen the video. But he certainly played like he had a chip on his shoulders, with two of the Southland Conference’s best on-ball defenders in Aaron Harwell and Darius Gatson checking him for most of the night.

“Winning kills everything,” James said. “Everything on ESPN and all that stuff, it really don’t matter no more because we won our game and we’re moving on to the next game.”

The score was tied at 28 at halftime with both teams shooting high percentages from the field. Sam Houston, actually shot the ball better than Lamar in the opening period, going 48 percent to the field compared to Lamar’s 42 percent.

The second half, however, was an entirely different story.

Lamar rose to 62 percent shooting, while the Bearkats’ offensive production plummeted to 33 percent.

“We got into a little rut offensively, which we’ve been known to do at times this year where we can’t score,” Sam Houston head coach Jason Hooten said. “The rest is history.”

Sam Houston was within one just two minutes into the second half on a pair of free throws by DeMarcus Gatlin. But that’s as close as the game would get for the rest of the night.

James responded with three-pointer, then stole the ball from Konner Tucker on the other end before taking it to the rim for a two-hand slam. He hit another jumper on the next possession to give Lamar an 8-point lead, then scored on a layup just two minutes later to put the Cardinals up 47-36.

“I would have liked for our energy level to be a little better defensively,” Hooten added. “We kind of let them go where they wanted to go with the ball and that’s not normal for us. Then when you get a guy like No. 5 for them (James) that got really hot like that, it makes a difference in the game.”

James hit another shot with 11:51 to go in the game which put Lamar up 52-39. From there, already with a 13-point lead, the Cardinals outscored Sam Houston 20-10 to produce the final score.

James went 12-of-20 from the floor on the night.

“Really, my teammates set good screens and they passed me the ball when I was open,” James said. “We work on that every day in practice so when we get open shots and the feet are set, I feel like I’m going to make shots.

“So, when they pass me the ball on point and I come off a good screen, I’m going to make it.”

For Lamar, seniors Devon Lamb and Anthony Miles added 15 and 14 points, respectively.

Sam Houston only had one player score in double figures, point guard Darius Gatson with 13 points.

The Bearkats fall to 6-8 in Southland Conference play, still in position to capture the seventh seed in the conference tournament.

Lamar clinched, now 9-5 in league action its berth in the eight-team field against Northwestern State on Feb. 8.

Sam Houston returns to the court on Wednesday to host Stephen F. Austin. The Bearkats lost the rivalry matchup earlier this season in overtime by one point.