“I’m proud of the way our guys played,” coach Rand Chappell said. “It was a shame to let it slip away. We had a golden opportunity to get a big win tonight, but we just let it slip through our fingers.”
Delta State stars Jeremy Richardson and Jasper Johnson were not shut down by the Bears, but they were forced to work for what they got and UCA didn’t let too many other players hurt them until late. Richardson finished with 19 points, Johnson had 16.
“I think to win tonight we needed to play an A-game,” Chappell said. “But we probably played about a B-game. We outplayed them a pretty good margin, but we couldn’t hold them down the stretch.”
Johnson, who stands 6-foot-7 and weighs in at just over 250 pounds can bang in the post but also come out and shoot the 3. He was 2-for-5 from behind the arc.
“We wanted to try to make [Johnson] work hard for everything,” Chappell said. “Overall I think we did a pretty decent job on him.”
The Bears took a 32-29 lead into the locker room at halftime and shot 52 percent for the half. But the Statesmen opened up the half on an 8-0 run to take a 36-32 lead before the Bears took over the half.
Trailing by five with 16:26 to go the Bears opened up a 19-4 run to take a 54-44 lead with 8:10 remaining.
The Statesmen found life again and traded baskets with UCA until Johnson started the DSU 20-2 run with 6: 44 left.
UCA turned the ball over five times in the next four minutes and didn’t get a single bucket until Joey Cortez broke the silence and brought the Bears to within one, 59-58 with 2:13 to go.
DSU was unable to get anything on its next possession and the Bears looked to take the lead. Fred Campbell provided a nice pump fake and then got plowed over. The official didn’t see it the way most of the Farris Center crowd did and called Campbell for traveling.
“All I saw was Fred making a good pump fake and then the next thing I know is he’s on his back,” Chappell said of the traveling call. “I wish we had instant replay for that one.”
The Bears took quick three-pointers on the remainder of their possessions and were forced to foul Delta the rest of the way. The Statesmen were only 3-of-6 on their last three trips to the line.
“Down the stretch I don’t think you could say our shot selection was terrible,” Chappell said. “But we probably shot a few of them too quick.”
Victor Brown was a key for the Statesmen during their 20-2 run. He had four points, two rebounds, one assist and one block during the run. He finished the game with 12 points.
“Vincent Brown was big for them down the stretch,” Chappell said. “We didn’t have another guy to put on him to matchup with his size and ability to make baskets.”
Brown and Johnson combine to make up one of the largest front courts in the GSC.
The Bears ran out to a 6-0 lead to start the game, but Delta was able to stop the bleeding early and tie the game at 14 with 12:30 left in the first half.
UCA took the lead back after hitting three straight 3-pointers. First Darryl Jones made it 26-24, Johnson hit a 3 to make it 27-26, then Joey Cortez and Campbell hit two more 3s to give UCA the 32-29 advantage going to the locker room.
Jones led the Bears with 15 points, Cortez had 13 and lead the team with six rebounds. Stephin Booth had nine points and Aubrey Bruner pitched in seven.
Both teams shot 49 percent from the field, the Bears shot 43.8 percent from 3-point territory, DSU shot just 33.3 percent from deep. Both teams were ugly from the free-throw line, where Delta was 10-of-17 for 58.8 percent and UCA was 3-of-9 for 33.3 percent.
The Bears will be back at home Monday to take on Arkansas-Monticello at 8 p.m.
