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Sunday, December 30, 2001
Arkansas-Little Rock takes
SBC opener, 71-57
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photo by Geoff Anderson
Carlos Morban scores
two of his team-high 13 points Sunday against UALR. Despite five
rebounds, four assists and four steals by the freshman guard,
the Golden Panthers dropped their Sun Belt Conference opener. |
 ark
Green led all scorers with 21 points and Nick Zachery
added 17 as Arkansas-Little Rock beat Florida International,
71-57, Sunday afternoon in the Sun Belt Conference opener for
both teams.
The win was the third straight for UALR (10-3, 1-0) and ninth
in the last ten games.
Carlos
Morban led FIU with 13 points, five rebounds, four assists
and four steals, but it wasn't enough as the Golden Panthers
fell to 6-8 on the year.
Despite holding FIU to just 29.6 percent from the floor in
the first half, the teams were tied at 20 with 2:26 to play.
After a Green basket and a Zachery free throw gave UALR a 23-20
lead with 37 seconds to go, FIU, looking for the last shot of
the half, instead had the ball stolen by Nick Jones who
scored on a layup as time expired.
That seemed to be the wake-up call for the Trojans who came
out and scored the first five points of the second half and over
the first six minutes of the period, went on a 20-7 run for a
45-27 advantage on a Jones dunk with 14:17 to play.
UALR built its lead to as many as 20 points, the last time
at 60-40 with 6:13 remaining before the Golden Panthers put on
a token run. FIU scored nine straight points, four of those by
Morban and another four by Rodrigo
Viegas, to get to within 60-49 with 3:37 to play. But
they could get no closer.
"Our team was introduced to what league play is all about
and I think to some, it was a shock," said FIU head coach
Donnie
Marsh. "We tried to tell our players how physical
this was going to be. We tried to tell them how prepared teams
were going to be for us. But for some guys, it just didn't register.
"You shouldn't be making those same mistakes in the 14th
game of the season that you made over the course of the first
13. We're not freshman anymore. We're not inexperienced anymore.
This could have just as easily been our first game out the way
we played.
"There are no more excuses. The bottom line is we have
to go out and perform and perform better especially as the intensity
of the league increases."
It doesn't get any easier with consensus league favorite Western
Kentucky coming into Golden Panther Arena on Wednesday, Jan.
2 for a 7:30 p.m. game. |