The first-game jitters for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock women's basketball team are out of the way.
UALR, the Sun Belt Conference preseason favorite, will host Florida Atlantic University at 6:30 tonight inside the Jack Stephens Center. The Trojans have not lost a home opener since 2014.
The Trojans opened the season with a 69-58 victory at Louisiana Tech, UALR's first victory in Ruston, La. Now they turn their attention to the Owls, who they've never lost to in nine previous games.
"It relieved everybody that we went on the road and won," UALR Coach Joe Foley said. "We're glad to come home and see what we can do at home. I think everybody always feels good after you get a W, but you can't relax. Just because we won a game, we can't relax."
Louisiana Tech dropped into a 2-3 zone after halftime. The Trojans, who scored 35 points against the Bulldogs' man-to-man defense, struggled against the zone.
"I thought we did a good job against their man defense," Foley said. "We got some good layups. We got some good looks. And then they switched to a zone in the second half, and we didn't attack that very well."
UALR did not attempt a three-pointer in the first half of Friday's game but shot 48.3 percent from the field.
In the second half, UALR attempted six three-pointers. Junior guard Kyra Collier fired five of the six and was the life of UALR's offense against the zone.
She scored a career-high 31 points against Louisiana Tech and became the first Trojan to score 30-plus since Taylor Gault's 31 on Nov. 21, 2012.
Trailing 51-49, Collier hit 3 three-pointers and a jumper to flip Louisiana Tech's two-point lead into a 57-51 edge for the Trojans. It was an eight-point swing that secured UALR's eighth season-opening victory in the past 10 years.
"That was the difference," Foley said. "The first half, she hit some good shots, but we had everybody involved in our offense. The second half, she kind of just got the mindset, 'All right, somebody's got to hit these shots.' "
Collier hit 3 of 5 from deep and scored 19 points in the second half. She lifted UALR when it struggled against a zone defense, something the Trojans (1-0) expect to see again tonight against Florida Atlantic (0-2).
"We were a little erratic on passing the ball and not getting to where we needed to be to get the shots that we need to get against a zone," Foley said. "Our timing was a little off. Early in the year, it's hard to work on everything. We know zone is something a lot of people use against us because we do set so many screens offensively."
Sports on 11/14/2018