Trojans fall short this time

2013-02-02/UALR vs USA - UALR forward Will Neighbour shoots a fade away jumper over Augustine Rubit of South Alabama during first-half action at the Jack Stephens Center on February 2, 2013

2013-02-02/UALR vs USA - UALR forward Will Neighbour shoots a fade away jumper over Augustine Rubit of South Alabama during first-half action at the Jack Stephens Center on February 2, 2013

Sunday, February 3, 2013

— The UALR men’s basketball team fell into another first-half hole Saturday night at the Jack Stephens Center, nine days after coming from 22 points down to claim victory.

The Trojans shot too many three-pointers, considering the rate at which they were making them, and gave up too many easy baskets to climb out of this one.

South Alabama built a 15-point first-half lead, then held off UALR’s frantic comeback in the final four minutes to beat the Trojans 70-66 in front of 3,935 at the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock.

“We didn’t have any urgency from the jump,” Trojans guard Josh Hagins said. “Dug ourselves a hole, can’t keep playing like that. That’s not what good teams do.”

The last time UALR played at home, on Jan. 24, the Trojans trailed 33-11 in the first half to Florida Atlantic before taking a 65-62 victory.

UALR trailed 36-26 at halftime Saturday and 61-50 with 5:58 left, then outscored South Alabama 12-3 over a five-minute stretch to get within 64-62 on Ben Dillard’s three-point play with 1:46 left.

But Will Neighbour missed a three-pointer, then Mychal Ammons’ driving layup pushed South Alabama’s lead to 66-62 with 48 seconds left.

Neighbour then missed a basket inside, Hagins missed a pu tback and Antoine Allen’s three-point play sealed it for the Jaguars (12-9, 9-4 Sun Belt Conference), handing UALR its second home loss, and first since Dec. 17.

UALR’s loss ended a three-game winning streak and dropped it into a tie with Arkansas State atop the Sun Belt’s West Division with seven games left in the regular season.

UALR (14-10, 8-5) visits Arkansas State on Feb. 14,and the teams play March 2 in Little Rock.

The way UALR failed to erase the final two points of South Alabama’s lead was similar to how it fell into the hole in the first place - by missing three-pointers on some possessions and easy layups on others.

UALR made 4 of 17 three pointers, 2 of 9 in the second half, and missed six consecutive during one stretch of the second half until Kemy Osse’s three-pointer with 2:30 left cut it to 64-59.

“I thought we settled,” UALR Coach Steve Shields said. “If we’re moving the ball and getting the ball to the paint and having good spacing, we’re not shooting 17 threes. I thought we settled at times.”

South Alabama missed seven of its first eight shots to start the second half, but UALR was only able to close within 36-31 as it missed easyshots, too.

Neighbour missed on a putback inside and Michael Javes and Hagins, who had 13 points, each missed putting back a Leroy Isler miss in the first two minutes of the second half.

“It’s tough when you miss little chippies, missing shots that you should be making,” said guard Ben Dillard, who had a team-high 15 points. “But that’s part of the game. You just got to keep fighting through it and get stops on the other end.”

Neighbour scored a combined 35 points in UALR’s twogames last week, both victories that earned the junior forward Sun Belt player of the week honors.

Neighbour had a team-high 10 rebounds Saturday, but was held to six points on 3-of-11 shooting and he missed on all four three-point attempts.

South Alabama Coach Jeff Price said stopping Neighbor was a priority for the Jaguars.

“Not to let him get open three-point looks,” Price said. “I thought we did a good job there.”

Augustine Rubit and Antoine Allen each had 17 points for South Alabama, and Ammons added 16. Allen’s quickness led to several South Alabama baskets in transition while UALR’s defense failed to respond, notably a firsthalf stretch of eight consecutive points that gave South Alabama a 34-19 lead.

“You’ve got to have urgency to get back,” Shields said. “They’re not running off long rebounds, they’re running off made baskets on our part and we’re not getting back, getting set up with the kind of urgency that we need to have.”ARKANSAS STATE 75, NORTH TEXAS 66 (OT)

JONESBORO - Cameron Golden scored 18 points, Ed Townsel added 15 as Arkansas State erased an 11-point second-half deficit to force overtime and eventually came out on top, defeating North Texas at the Convocation Center.

ASU (14-8, 8-5 Sun Belt) outscored North Texas 16-7 in overtime to earn the victory.

The Red Wolves struggled from threepoint range, making 8 of 28 attempts, and shot 34.4 percent from the floor overall.

Jordan Williams led North Texas (8-16, 3-10) with 18 points and eight rebounds. Tony Mitchell had 14 points and nine rebounds, and Roger Franklin finished with seven points and 10 rebounds. Brandon Peterson had 14 rebounds for ASU.

Sports, Pages 21 on 02/03/2013