CONWAY, Ark. _ The University of Central Arkansas placed five players in double figures in cruising to an 85-67 exhibition victory over Southwest Baptist on Wednesday night at the Farris Center.

    UCA played 15 players with 12 scoring points, led by senior guard Jordan Howard with 13 points and senior forward Mathieu Kamba with 12. The Bears' defense forced the Bearcats into 28 turnovers, with freshman guard Deandre Jones picking up a game-high three steals to go along with his 10 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds.

    "I think in an exhibition game what you always want is to be pushed, you want to get exposed on some things you don't do well,' said UCA's fourth-year head coach Russ Pennell. "And it reinforces some things you've been trying to get them to do in practice that they haven't. That's the whole purpose of it. And there's a reason why it's a practice game and it doesn't count.

   "But I thought we had some stretches we played really well. I was really happy with our defense, especially the second half. They shot 38 percent. And that's been one of our Achilles heels, so I think that was good. And I told them if that was a bad offensive night, and I thought we were just OK, we still scored 85, so I was happy with that part.'

    After a somewhat slow start, the Bears pushed out to a nine-point lead at the half, with Kamba finishing the run with a dunk in the final minute. The Bearcats fought back early in the second half and got within five points twice, the latter with 13:00 left, before UCA took control again. From that point, UCA outscored SBU 30-17 the rest of the way.

    "I thought we didn't complete some plays,' Pennell said. "I think we had a lot more layups we could have made that we just kind of threw up there and they didn't go in. And I thought on the defensive end, there were about four or five times that we had them under four (seconds) on the shot clock and we didn't complete the play. They've got to understand you can't play defense for 28 seconds and then just give up the last two.

    "But those are things I think we can teach and coach and get better at.'

    The Bears shot 48.6 percent from the field for the game and finished with 21 assists. Sophomore guard Darraja Parnell had 11 points, while freshman center Hayden Koval had 11 points and 3 rebounds.

    "Deandre Jones is the real deal,' said Pennell. "He's just a true point guard and I thought he was outstanding. I thought (freshman Matthew) Mondesir gave us a big lift when he came in the first half. And then I liked the way Hayden finished the game. And that's three guys we didn't have last year, so it just adds to our depth.

    "I thought Darraja was really good. In fact, I thought our bench really bailed us out. When they came in they had the right approach and I thought their athleticism really bothered Southwest Baptist when we started pressing. I thought Otas (Iyekekpolor), Ethan (Lee) and Tanner (Schmit), those three bigs were outstanding. They just did their jobs and I was real pleased with that.'

    UCA opens the 2017-18 season on Nov. 10 against the Baylor Bears in Waco, Texas.