UALR men's basketball Coach Wes Flanigan adjusted his starting lineup for the first time this season and it helped the Trojans get a road victory Saturday.
Guard Deondre Burns had a career-best game in his first start, and Marcus Johnson Jr. broke out of a shooting slump while coming off the bench. Both were essential in the Trojans' 76-68 victory over Appalachian State in Boone, N.C.
Johnson responded from four consecutive poor shooting games to score 20 points on 8-of-14 shooting and Burns made four three-pointers on his way to a career-high 16 points.
Lis Shoshi added 15 points for UALR (11-5, 2-1) which was playing five days after a 69-52 home loss to Louisiana-Lafayette. That performance was enough to force changes from Flanigan, and the Trojans improved on that game's 32.2 percent shooting performance.
UALR shot 47.4 percent from the floor (27 of 57) and made 9 of 16 three-pointers.
Johnson, who had started 33 consecutive games, didn't check into the game until the midway point of the first half. He had 11 points in the first half, while making 8 of 14 shots from the floor and 2 of 3 three-pointers. Johnson hadn't scored more than nine points in four consecutive games and was 8-for-40 from the floor in those games.
UALR started the second half on a 12-4 run to go up 43-35, but Appalachian State responded with a run to tie it 50-50 with 12:04 left. The Mountaineers briefly took a 63-62 lead on a three-point play by Kelvin Robinson, an Episcopal Collegiate graduate. But Shoshi answered with two free throws to put UALR back up 64-63 with 4:00 left and it didn't trail again.
Griffin Kinney and Tyrell Johnson each had 14 points for Appalachian State, which shot 45.3 percent from the floor and made 9 of 21 threes.
Sports on 01/08/2017