The Idaho Vandals used aggressive defense and just enough offense to hand UALR its first loss on Friday night.
The Vandals held UALR to 25.8 percent shooting in the first half en route to a 65-57 victory in front of an announced crowd of 2,630 at the Jack Stephens Center.
UALR (2-1) hit 19 of 61 (31.1 percent) against an Idaho team that employed a bruising, pressing style of defense. UALR often settled for outside shots rather than go inside on a Vandals' frontcourt that packed the lane.
UALR was 5 of 25 on three-pointers and committed 10 turnovers, 6 in the first half.
Idaho led 6-0 lead after two quick three-pointers.
The Trojans outscored the Vandals 14-7 to take a 14-13 lead with 13:47 to play, but that would be the last Trojans' lead. The Vandals led 29-21 at the half after leading by as many as 12.
UALR made a run near the end, cutting Idaho's lead to 55-53 with 2:42 left to pay on a three-point field goal by Kemy Osse.
The Vandals responded when guard Victor Sanders hit an off-balance, leaning three-pointer, with the shot clock winding down, while attempting to draw a foul to put the Vandals back up by five.
"When Victor hits that shot, I thought it gave us a boost," Idaho Coach Don Verlin said.
Sander sled the Vandals with 20 points. Teammates Nate Sherwood and Arkadiy Mkrtychyan finished with 14 and 11 points respectively.
UALR guard Marcus Johnson hit two free throws on the ensuing possession to cut the Vandals lead back to three, but Idaho outscored UALR 7-2 to close out the game. Johnson finished with a game-high 23 points for the Trojans.
"I think that we just didn't get into our offense and took bad shots," UALR forward Lis Soshi said. "We were just looking around and not running our offense."
Soshi finished with 11 points and 16 rebounds. He was the only Trojan other than Johnson to score 10 or more points.
"We've got to figure out what our roles are on this team," UALR Coach Wes Flanigan said. "We've got to figure out who are go-to guys are late in clock. Last year, [former Trojans] Josh [Hagin] and Roger [Woods] did it for us. They were our guys, we knew that. So, now, we've got to develop that."
Flanigan said that his team isn't panicking after one loss; besides, he said, they don't have the time to.
"We've got 30-something games left, so we've got time to figure that out," Flanigan said. "But right now, we've got to turn our attention to this Texas trip."
The Trojans travel to Austin, Texas to play in the Lone Star Shootout, facing St. Bonaventure on Monday at 5 p.m. in Cedar Park, Texas.
Sports on 11/19/2016