JACKSONVILLE, FLa. — The short-handed University of Central Arkansas Bears put up a solid first half for the second straight game but fell victim to another hot-shooting team in the final 20 minutes Saturday, falling 79-59 to the Jacksonville Dolphins in ASUN Conference action at Swisher Gymnasium.
The Bears (6-14, 3-4) were down four, 35-31, at halftime but then saw the Dolphins (13-7, 5-3) shoot 66.7% from the field in the second half. UCA, playing without leading scorer and rebounder Darious Hall, out with an injury suffered Thursday night at North Florida, could not keep up, hitting just 27.3% in the second half and going one of 10 from 3-point range. The Bears scored nearly exactly what the Dolphins’ opponents average (58.7 ppg), which ranks ninth in the nation.
Jacksonville improved to 10-0 at home this season.
“I thought the guys really gave great effort,” said UCA head coach Anthony Boone, “knowing that Day Day (Hall) wasn’t with us. And for awhile it was really good. But then there was a point in the second half where we got a little tired and we just couldn’t get stops.
“And we didn’t have Day Day, who every once in a while, can just go get a basket for us to give us a little bit more energy. We just didn’t have that. And we’ve got to learn to play through that. I said that after the last game, and we didn’t have much practice at it, just practicing yesterday. But we’ll have to continue to grow and have guys step up.”
Sophomore guard Collin Cooper kept the Bears in the game in the first half, hitting four of his career-high five three-pointers and scoring 12 points as the visiting Bears led by as much as five points in the game’s opening five minutes. Cooper finished with a team-best 17 points in a team-high 36 minutes of action.
Junior forward Eddy Kayouloud scored 16 points and pulled down 11 rebounds for his second double-double of the season, while freshman Camren Hunter had 12 points, six rebounds and two assists for the Bears. UCA ended up shooting 33.3 for the game and just 21.4% (6 of 28) from beyond the arc.
“They are great defensively, no doubt about it,” said Boone. “I thought the first half was pretty good. And they saw some things they needed to do differently and they made adjustments. And there were some adjustments we needed to make and we attempted to, and some of them worked before we got tired.
“Eddy had a great game I thought. We had a pretty good understanding to try to go to him and he had a pretty good understanding of that. And he also did a great job on the glass for us. But that just wasn’t enough.”
Jacksonville’s Tyreese Davis connected on five of seven from 3-point range – including a string of three consecutive possessions in the second half – and led the Dolphins with 22 points after entering the game averaging 7.0 per game. Mike Marsh was the only other Jacksonville player in double figures with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
“He’s a pretty good shooter but he’s not someone that takes that many shots from outside,” Boone said of Davis. “But they just had to have them and he stepped up and made some big ones for them against our zone.”
UCA held its own on the boards with one of the top rebounding teams in the ASUN, losing the battle 41-34 but pulling down 11 offensive rebounds to Jacksonville’s 10.
UCA returns home for consecutive games on Scottie Pippen Court, against Florida Gulf Coast on Thursday night and against Stetson on Saturday afternoon.
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