Saturday, February 8, 2003

Arkansas-Little Rock staves off late FIU surge, 46-45

rkansas-Little Rock holds off a late FIU rally to win, 46-45, at Golden Panther Arena. The Golden Panthers have lost its last three contests by a combined five points.

Junior Matias scored a career-high 25 points on 10-for-18 shooting (56-percent) to lead FIU. At the 15-minute mark in the second half, Matias had scored 17 of FIU's 25 points.

The Golden Panthers (6-15, 0-8 Sun Belt Conference) down by as much as 12 with 12:37 left to play, used a 17-7 run to bring the deficit down to two, 45-43, at the 1:21-mark.

After Trojan Jamal Holden made a free throw, Nikola Novakovic nailed a jumper with 19-seconds left. Eulis Baez fouled UALR's Mark Green, who missed the front end of a one-and-one to set up one final play.

Carlos Morban passed to Fab Fisher on the outside baseline who missed the shot as time expired.

FIU out rebounded its tenth opponent on the year, 35-28, as Belco Bamba grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds, followed by Baez's eight.

The Golden Panthers stole 12 passes in the game, led by Bamba's three.

Free-throw shooting plagued the Golden Panthers throughout the game, shooting 40-percent (10-for-25) from the charity stripe.

FIU shot 36-percent (16-for-44) from the floor in the game, while UALR was 40-percent (15-for-38).

UALR (14-9, 5-4 SBC) took a 24-17 lead into halftime, as Matias scored 11 of FIU's 17 first-half points.

FIU still held a 11-9 lead with ten minutes to play in the half when UALR went on a 11-1 run over the next seven minutes to take a 21-12 advantage.

FIU, shooting 62-percent for the year, was 3-for-9 from the free-throw line in the first half. The Trojans held the Golden Panthers to 29-percent (6-for-21) shooting from the floor.

The Golden Panthers will travel to Mobile, AL to face the South Alabama Jaguars on Thursday night at 8:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) in a Sun Belt Conference matchup.