Ironing out the press
UALR downs Troy, runs streak to 7 in a row
Joe Foley raised concern about Troy’s full-court press on Wednesday.
The day before the second meeting between two of the Sun Belt Conference’s top three teams, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s women’s basketball coach spoke hopefully. The last time UALR played Troy, the pressure led to UALR’s only conference loss of the season on Jan. 10.
One month later, after two consecutive weeks of rehearsing how to disable Troy’s full-court press, UALR’s 76-72 victory Thursday was sweet even if it did not look perfect at times.
“You’ve just got to fight through it sometimes,” Foley said. “We did a good job of actually just winning. I didn’t think it was pretty. I didn’t think either team played pretty. But you’ve got two great teams out there just battling their hearts out.”
UALR (13-8, 9-1 Sun Belt Conference) was able to avenge a 71-66 loss at Trojan Arena in January with its seventh consecutive victory Thursday at the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock. UALR’s streak is the longest active in the Sun Belt.
Prior to Thursday, Foley said Troy (16-5, 7-3) had the tools to be the most threatening team in the conference.
Troy had the conference’s leading scoring offense (82.5 points per game) and was the nation’s top rebounding team (51.1 per game) before Thursday’s rematch.
Troy typically relies on its depth and its ability to score on second-chance points. Troy used 12 players Thursday to UALR’s 8 and scored 26 second-chance points off 21 total offensive rebounds.
While UALR didn’t exactly bottle up Troy’s strengths, it did enough to minimize their effectiveness.
“I said if they got 25 [offensive rebounds] like they did
last time, we’d probably get beat,” Foley said. “They got 21 and we held on. I guess I’m a pretty good predictor.”
Troy held a 17-14 lead after the first quarter and was ahead 31-27 at halftime.
UALR closed the second quarter on a 6-0 run spanning 1:37. Sophomore guard Terrion Moore made three consecutive layups, shrinking the gap for UALR after a first half that was not easy, but UALR lingered.
Sophomore guard Tori Lasker sank two free throws with 5:22 remaining in the third quarter to give UALR a 39-38 lead. The second free throw gave UALR its first lead since it was ahead 5-4 with more than seven minutes remaining in the first quarter.
UALR freshman forward Krystan Vornes entered for three minutes in the third quarter and provided seven quick points to energize the team’s lead-taking burst.
UALR won the third quarter 21-15 and carried a 48-46 lead into the fourth quarter, where Troy’s press resurfaced and the home team relied on Lasker for decisive buckets.
“Tori’s just big,” said junior guard Kyra Collier, who scored 15 points. “She’s got confidence in herself. We put confidence in each other, big time. She hit some big threes for us and came back and hit some free throws. … We’re just rolling.”
Lasker, who went 2 for 4 on three-pointers in the second half and finished with 14 points, added a mid-range jumper with 2:43 left in the fourth to push UALR’s lead to 64-59.
Collier then scored five unanswered points on two jumpers and a free throw. UALR’s lead swelled to 7059 after senior forward Ronjanae DeGray, who scored a team-high 19, sank a free throw with 54 seconds remaining.
Troy’s vaunted full-court press then reappeared.
“We responded pretty well [to the press] through the whole game until the end,” Collier said. “We got a little scrambled, being young. But I think we kind of pulled it out.”
Troy unleashed a 13-6 run in the final minute and cut UALR’s lead to 72-70 with 20.2 seconds remaining after junior guard Tyra Johnson’s three-pointer. Lasker and Collier maintained UALR’s lead by going 4 for 4 from the free-throw line in the final 20 seconds.
ARKANSAS STATE 69, SOUTH ALABAMA 58
A 6-0 run covering 2:41 at the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter allowed Arkansas State University (9-12, 4-6) to build a lead it wouldn’t relinquish Thursday to beat South Alabama at First National Bank Arena in Jonesboro.
The first quarter featured four ties, the last coming with 1:06 left on Payton Tennison’s jumper to tie the game at 14-14. The Red Wolves then went on their run, taking a 20-14 lead with 8:25 left in the first half on a Peyton Martin jumper. South Alabama cut the lead to 21-20 with 7:09 left on Savannah Jones’ three-pointer, but Arkansas State rebounded to take a 34-23 lead on two Martin free throws with 2:15 left in the half. Akasha Westbrook hit a jumper with 1:25 left that gave the Red Wolves a 37-25 halftime lead.
Arkansas State led for the entire second half, but saw its lead cut to three at 48-45 to start the fourth quarter on a three-pointer by Jayla Morrow. The Red Wolves then scored the next five points, all from the free-throw line, to take a 51-45 lead with 7:41 left.
Jireh Washington scored 14 points to lead Arkansas State, which had five players score 10 or more points. Martin finished with 12, while Westbrook, Tennison and Morgan Wallace had 11 each. Savannah Jones had a game-high 19 points in the loss for South Alabama and Shaforia Kines finished with 15.
SEC WOMEN
LSU 71, ARKANSAS 34
LSU (13-8, 4-5 SEC) led 36-10 at halftime on its way to the blowout victory over Arkansas (16-8, 5-5) at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge.
The loss was the third in a row for Arkansas and the four consecutive against the Tigers.
The Razorbacks trimmed the deficit to 20 on four separate occasions in the third quarter, but LSU opened up a 40-point advantage (71-31) with 2:11 left in the game.
Arkansas never led in the game and was outscored in points in the paint (52-24), bench points (17-5), points off turnovers (25-15) and second-chance points (15-3).
LSU outrebounded Arkansas 46-26. Chelsea Dungee (14) and Malica Monk (12) combined to score 26 of the Razorbacks’ 34 points.
LSU’s Ayana Mitchell led all scorers with 21 points and had a game-high 17 rebounds.
SUN BELT MEN
UALR 84, TROY 70
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock (8-15, 3-7 Sun Belt Conference) led by eight points midway through the first half, but trailed by six at halftime before using a 10-0 run in the second half to pull away from Troy (10-12, 3-7) at Trojan Arena in Troy, Ala.
A layup by Dani Koljanin with 10:14 left in the first half gave UALR a 20-12 lead before Troy went on a 16-0 run over the next 5½ minutes. KJ Simon’s dunk with 4:50 left in the half gave Troy a 28-20 lead before two free throws by Rayjon Tucker ended the run. Troy built a nine-point lead at 33-24 with 2:54 remaining in the first half, but UALR cut it to 33-30 with just under a minute left and trailed 36-30 at halftime.
Nikola Maric hit 1 of 2 free throws early in the second half to tie the game at 40-40 and UALR was slowly able to build a lead. Marquis Nowell hit a three-pointer with 12:19 remaining to give UALR a 55-47 lead and Troy countered with a Darius Adams jumper, cutting the lead to 55-49. That’s when UALR went on its 10-0 run, using the next 3½ minutes to build a 65-49 advantage after Tucker hit a three-pointer with 8:32 left. UALR was never threatened after that and its lead was as high as 25 points with 4:37 left after Kris Bankston converted a three-point play.
Tucker scored 24 points to lead UALR,
SOUTH ALABAMA 70, ARKANSAS STATE 62
which snapped a five-game losing streak and earned its first victory at Troy since 2016. Maric and Deondre Burns each finished with 12 points, with all of Burns’ points coming in the second half, while Nowell added 11 points and 6 assists. Javan Johnson led Troy with 16 points and Darian Adams followed with 15.
South Alabama (12-11, 5-5) used an 11-0 run in a span of just over three minutes late in the first half to defeat Arkansas State University (10-13, 4-6) at the Mitchell Center in Mobile, Ala.
The Red Wolves led for a majority of the first half, building an 18-11 lead with 8:04 remaining after a layup by J.J. Matthews. The Jaguars chipped away and took a 19-18 lead with 5:52 left when John Pettway hit two free throws, but a three-pointer by Tristan Walley gave ASU a 21-19 lead. That’s when South Alabama went on its run, ending with a layup by Rodrick Sikes that gave the Jaguars a 32-21 lead with 1:06 left in the first half. Herb McGee hit a three-pointer to give South Alabama a 35-24 halftime lead.
While Arkansas State trailed for the entire second half, the Red Wolves made things interesting down the stretch, cutting the South Alabama lead to a single point on two separate occasions. Walley hit two free throws with 4:43 left that cut the lead to 57-56, and after Josh Ajayi converted a three-point play, a three-pointer by Ty Cockfield cut the lead 60-59 with 4:08 remaining. The Jaguars then went on a 6-0 run over roughly the next three minutes to take a 66-59 lead after two free throws by R.J. Kelly with 1:14 left.
Cockfield and Walley scored 16 points each to lead the Red Wolves, who shot 35.2 percent (19 of 54) from the floor, including 11-of-24 from the threepoint line. Marquis Eaton also had 10 points for ASU. Herb McGee led South Alabama with 24 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the floor, including four three-pointers, and Ajayi poured in 20.