CONWAY, Ark. _ Turnovers doomed the University of Central Arkansas Bears again on Tuesday night as the McNeese State Cowboys walked away with a 77-60 victory in Southland Conference action at the Farris Center.

    The Bears (1-24, 1-13) turned the ball over 18 times and the Cowboys took advantage, scoring 31 points off those turnovers. That contributed greatly to McNeese scoring 50 points in the paint and 26 off fast breaks.

    "College basketball is about not beating yourself. It really is,' said UCA head coach Russ Pennell. "If you make too many mistakes, there are too many good teams that will take advantage of it. And right now, we're just not a good basketball team. I like the pieces of what we have, I like our effort in certain areas. But our overall game right now is not where it needs to be to be successful.'

    The Bears led 7-4 early as junior center Jake Zuilhof scored the Bears' first four points of the game. But the Cowboys quickly took the lead on Kevin Hardy's layup and pushed it out to a 22-12 advantage at the 12:24 mark of the first half. UCA fought back, with Jordan Howard's three-pointer cutting the deficit to just two points at 26-24 with 7:20 left in the half.

    After the Bears got back to within two at 31-29 on Thatch Unruh's three, the Cowboys, who shot 51.6 percent from the field in the first half, settled for a 38-33 halftime lead. 

    UCA netted the first four points of the second half on a jumper by Mathieu Kamba and a layup by Unruh, but it went sour quickly for the Bears from there. The Cowboys scored the next 20 points to put the game out of reach. UCA went nearly six minutes without a basket and McNeese ran out to as much as a 21-point lead at 58-37.

    "It's a head-scratcher how we can go from good to bad so quick,' said Pennell. "And tonight we did some stuff that I haven't seen all year. It was a little disappointing because I thought we had a chance to get this one.'

    The Bears managed to cut the lead to 13 points at 64-51 on seven consecutive points from Kamba but that was as close as they would get.  McNeese's Keelan Garrett nailed three consecutive threes from the same spot in the left corner, the final one giving the Cowboys a 75-53 advantage with 4:34 to play.

    Garrett finished with 25 points, after coming into the game averaging just 9.4. Desharick Guidry had 13 points and 11 rebounds for his SLC-leading 19th double-double. Senior guard Kevin Hardy had 16 points, 6 rebounds and 8 steals for the Cowboys, who shot 52.5 percent for the game.

    "When you make layups, you're going to shoot 50 percent,' said Pennell. "It seems like our turnovers led to dead layups. We weren't getting back. Just a lot of different things. We were trying everybody we had over there. We had one combination that was pretty good. I think we cut it to 13 one time. And then that was kind of our last gasp.'

    Kamba topped the Bears with 14 points, including his first three-pointer of the season. Howard, a freshman from Chandler, Ariz., added 13 points. Junior guard Mike Martin had a team-high 7 assists, while Zuilhof had 9 points and a team-high 8 rebounds.

    UCA plays its final home game of the season at 4 p.m. Saturday against Southeastern Louisiana as part of a doubleheader with the Sugar Bears.