LITTLE ROCK — A poor offensive showing hampered the UALR men’s basketball team again Thursday night.
Now the Trojans have to worry about staying in the top half of the Sun Belt Conference standings over the regular season’s final week.
UALR tied its second-lowest scoring output of the season and allowed Florida International to shoot 46.8 percent from the floor in a 65-52 loss Thursday night at U.S. Century Bank Arena in Miami.
It was the Trojans’ third consecutive loss and fourth in their past five games.
UALR (15-13, 9-8) is in line for the No. 5 seed in next month’s Sun Belt Conference Tournament, having been passed for the fourth spot by Florida International ( 15-12, 10-8). The top five teams get first-round byes, and the other six teams begin the tournament March 8 in Hot Springs.
The last time the teams met, Jan. 12 in Little Rock, UALR shot 59.2 percent in an 88-76 victory. But UALR shot 39.3 percent Thursday night and made only 2 of 22 three pointers while at one point missing 14 consecutive.
Six different UALR players took threes, but only freshman guard John Gillon made one. He was 2 of 5 from three-point range and tied Michael Javes with a team-high 12 points.
Cameron Bell led Florida International with 17 points. Jerome Frink had 13, Deric Hill had 12 and Tymell Murphy scored 11.
Sports, Pages 21 on 02/22/2013