Second-half run too much for Bears

JACKSONVILLE 74, CENTRAL ARKANSAS 64

CONWAY — Just about everything that could have gone wrong in the second half did Saturday afternoon at the Farris Center as the University of Central Arkansas men’s basketball team fell 74-64 to Jacksonville.

The Bears (7-16, 2-8 ASUN) trailed the Dolphins (12-9, 5-5) 30-27 at halftime. But a little over five minutes into the second half, the Bears were down 42-32 midway through a 17-5 run by the Dolphins.

“I thought our guys played a very good first half, [but] we didn’t come out quite as hungry in the second half,” UCA head coach Brock Widders said. “I thought [Jacksonville] went in at halftime and they came out executing their offen- sive game plan to perfection.”

Jacksonville shot 64% from the field and 55.6% from behind the three-point arc in the second half to pull ahead by as many as 18 points.

Widders credited Jacksonville’s guards for controlling the tempo and feeding their inside duo of Mike Marsh and Osayi Osifo. The pair finished with 30 combined points — 17 by Osifo and 13 by Marsh — to go with 18 points from Jordan Davis and 11 from Dylan O’Hearn.

“Their guards were very unselfish, and they continued to pound it inside,” Widders said of Davis and Gyasi Powell. “They knew that was going to get them good looks and for 20 minutes, Jacksonville executed their game plan better than we did.”

As the deficit expanded, UCA began to rely on shots from deep. Of the Bears’ 54 shots, 30 came from behind the arc. They hit 10 of those, three makes each coming from Masai Olowokere, Collin Cooper and Camren Hunter.

Hunter led the Bears with 18 points, followed by Cooper with 13 and Eddy Kayouloud’s 12 points.

Widders said he felt like a sense of urgency to make up the deficit got the better of his team at points, like during Jacksonville’s 11-0 run early in the second half.

“We have to grow up in the sense that when a team goes on a 5-0 run or a 10-0 run, we have to sense that run,” Widders said. “I can only call timeout so quick. And we can’t be taking home run shots. We’re not going to get it all back at once, so we got to keep playing basketball the right way.”

Elis Cato made his return from an ankle injury that held him out the past three games. He showed the impact he can have as he totaled four blocks in 23 minutes.

“Having Elias back is very big for me,” Widders said. “I think Elias is a tough kid. For him to go out there on a bum ankle and give the best he could, I think that says a lot for who he is [and] the kind of toughness we’re trying.”

While Cato made his return, Churchill Bounds remained out and was joined by Ibbe Klintman and Johan Craaford. Crafoord and Bounds are UCA’s two biggest bodies, so not having them available forced players like Cato to guard the 6-11 Marsh and the 6-8 Osifo .

“It was a tough day to be missing those guys. No doubt they are our bigger bodies that could have pushed those guys around a little more,” Widders said. “We threw every possible plan at them that we could, but they were just better than us today.”