The UALR women's basketball team's defense showed up Thursday night, and because of that the Trojans took their biggest step toward clinching a regular season Sun Belt Conference title.
UALR forced 23 turnovers and overcame some poor free-throw shooting to hold on for a 63-61 victory at the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock.
The victory came three weeks after ASU beat UALR in Jonesboro, and it extended the Trojans' lead to 2 1/2 games over the Red Wolves in the Sun Belt standings with four games remaining.
"It was just like I told you, two evenly matched teams," UALR Coach Joe Foley said. "We missed a lot of free throws, and everybody knows if we made more free throws it's an eight- to 10-point game. But that's the reason you play these games."
The Trojans, a 67.5 percent free-throw shooting team going into the game, made 14 of 28 from the line Thursday. Shanity James was 2 of 10 from the line and missed two with 7.9 seconds left that gave the Red Wolves their final chance.
After James missed her second free throw, ASU's Aundrea Gamble grabbed the rebound, dribbled to the corner of the floor in front of her team's bench and launched a three-point attempt at the buzzer that bounced off the front of the rim.
UALR (22-3, 15-1) was 3 for 7 from the free-throw line in the last 1:25 as ASU (17-8, 12-3) climbed back from a 60-54 deficit.
"We do free throws a lot in practice," said James, who finished with 10 points. "I have no idea what the problem was today."
Luckily it didn't matter for the Trojans, who have won six in a row since losing to the Red Wolves.
ASU shot 57 percent against UALR in that game but 47.9 percent Thursday. The lower percentage helped UALR maintain control for most of the game, but so did ASU's season-high 23 turnovers. UALR scored 23 points off those turnovers, and Taylor Gault had a team-high six steals.
"I think this is the true Little Rock defensive team that you hear about and see on film," ASU Coach Brian Boyer said. "They were awfully good today."
Ke'Neshia Cobbins helped hold Gamble, the Sun Belt's leading scorer, to nine points after Gamble had 19 points in the previous meeting.
"They couldn't' get in a flow knowing where they were going to get shots at," Foley said. "I think it was important for us to understand that we could stop them, that we could get stops.
"Now, if we were to face each other again, at least we know we can. Consistently, we were getting stops here and there and kids felt good about themselves."
Neither Foley nor his players would say they feel UALR has wrapped up the regular-season title with Thursday's victory, but it would it take an uncharacteristic collapse for the Trojans to not enter next month's Sun Belt Tournament as the No. 1 seed.
"We're going to keep playing and see what happens," Boyer said. "But any of us that have a thought that they're going to lose three games out of the last four -- they're too good."
ASU came close to keeping those hopes alive after UALR tried to put the game away midway through the second half.
A driving baseline layup by Gault followed ASU's 20th turnover and gave UALR its biggest lead at 58-47 with 2:53 left.
But Gamble rattled in a three-pointer to make it 60-54 with 1:25 left and UALR couldn't close out the game with free throws. Gamble made two free throws to get to within 60-56 with 1:03 left, then after Gault made 1 of 2 free throws, Hanna Qedan's jumper pulled ASU to within 61-58 with 35.6 seconds left.
Khadija Brown-Haywood's three-pointer from the corner pulled ASU to within 63-61 with 16.7 seconds left, then James was fouled and sent to the line.
Gault led UALR with 22 points, while Cobbins had 11 and Clark had 10.
"It definitely does not stop here," Cobbins said. "We have to keep going up. We can't say we won this game so we're done. No, we have to keep going, keep fighting."
Sports on 02/20/2015