Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Strong defensive effort pays for UCA in ‘must-have’ win
ASUN MEN CENTRAL ARKANSAS 76, AUSTIN PEAY 69 SAM LANE
CONWAY — The University of Central Arkansas men’s basketball team responded with its best defensive effort since conference play began to beat Austin Peay 76-69 on Saturday at the Farris Center.
“It was a must-have game. Everybody knew that; it didn’t take me saying that,” said Brock Widders, UCA’s acting head coach. “It’s nice to come in here and take care of it.”
UCA (9-18, 4-10 ASUN) held Austin Peay (8-19, 2-12) to 38.3% shooting from the field, 27.3% on three-pointers and forced 13 turnovers.
“We’ve talked about [playing well on defense],” Widders said. “We rewarded guys who help us with defending and rebounding. They got more playing time and I think that shows the rest of us to step up and that we have to defend and rebound as well.”
One of those players was sophomore Elias Cato, who got his third start of the season and first since Jan. 14. Cato finished with 13 points, 2 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1 steal and had a team-high plus-13 plus/ minus stat in 29 minutes.
Cato has averaged 19.6 minutes per game this season and Widders said he wanted to get that number up because of the impact Cato can have on both ends of the floor.
“He’s a guy who helps us on defense, and he’s a guy that gets his hands on a lot of basketballs,” Widders said. “So getting him in there from the jump to set a tone of defense and rebounding was the thought behind [Cato starting].”
Sophomore Churchill Bounds also had 8 points and 4 rebounds in 19 minutes off the bench for the Bears.
UCA has had strong first halves recently in conference play but have come out of halftime flat, and it was a large reason for its loss to Lipscomb on Thursday.
On Saturday, the Bears took a 38-30 lead into halftime and came out with a 6-0 run in the first 90 seconds of the second half.
“So much of the game is your mindset, and I don’t think we were coming out of halftime with energetic and positive mindsets before. I thought today we did,” Widders said. “It was nice to see us be able to change that from two days ago.”
UCA led for throughout the second half thanks to 16 second-half points by Eddy Kayouloud. The senior led all scorers with 24 points on 10-of-12 shooting and secured his fifth double-double with 10 rebounds.
Camren Hunter and VJ Reeves hit double digits as well, scoring 13 and 11 points respectively.
Sean Durugordan led Austin Peay with 18 points followed by Rodrique Massenat with 14. Austin Peay is the first opponent UCA has held under 70 points scored since its 72-66 win over Arkansas State on Dec. 6.
The win Saturday moved UCA into 12th place in the ASUN standings. The top 10 teams will earn spots in the conference tournament, which begins Feb. 27.