The UCA Men’s basketball team extended their historic winning streak to double-figures, using a hot shooting first half to hold off the University of West Georgia Wolves 79-62 at the Farris Center Feb. 14.
Central Arkansas improves to 17-10, and 12-2 in Atlantic Sun play with the win, setting the program record for the most regular season conference wins in UCA’s Division 1 era.
The Bears opened hot offensively, making 16 of their first 26 field goal attempts to race out to a 39-22 advantage, with 15 of UCA’s points in that span coming from freshman guard Luke Moore.
Moore would have a career day, as he finished with 21 points and five assists on zero turnovers.
After freshman guard Harry Beauchamp’s layup extended the Central Arkansas lead to 43-24 with 6:25 remaining in the first half, the Bears hit a wall on offense, only scoring one point the rest of the half.
West Georgia would capitalize on the UCA drought by going on an extended 25-9 run, capped off by a three from senior guard Malcom Noel to shrink the Bears lead to 52-49 with 13:15 to play in the second half.
Central Arkansas responded during a critical juncture of the game with a 16-7 spurt of their own to go up 68-56 with 5:01 left, including five straight points from senior guard Camren Hunter, who ended the game with 9 points.
After a quick 4-0 West Georgia run, a three from redshirt freshman guard Ty Robinson sparked an 11-2 run for the Bears to close the game and secure their tenth victory in a row.
Robinson secured his first career double-double in the win, scoring 23 points and adding 10 rebounds.
After being close on multiple occasions, Robinson spoke about how it felt to get the double-double that has eluded him all season.
Robinson said “Finally got it, this is my third game with 10+ rebounds and I finally got the points, so it felt good but the main thing is we won, so it was much better.”
UCA also clinched a top four finish in the ASUN standings on Saturday, meaning they have earned an automatic bye to the quarterfinals of the ASUN Tournament taking place in Jacksonville next month.
Bears Head Coach John Shulman talked about how important earning the first round bye is for Central Arkansas to reach its ultimate goal of winning the conference tournament.
Shulman said, “I’ve been in this thing a long time, you’ve got to have that bye, that bye is important.. If you finish in the top four, you play on that Friday and you’ve got a chance to win it.”
Despite the importance of the finishing top four in the conference, Shulman claimed his team has still not accomplished their primary objective.
Shulman said, “We’ve got a lot more work to do. That wasn’t the goal. The goal is not to finish upper-echelon in the league, the goal is to win the league, and we’re not in first.”
Looking ahead, the Bears begin their final road trip of the regular season as they travel to Deland, Fla. for a matchup against the Stetson University Hatters on Feb. 19.
All UCA Basketball games can be streamed on ESPN+.