CONWAY, Ark. _ Even by his lofty standards, University of Central Arkansas' Jordan Howard had an impressive night Wednesday at the Farris Center.
Howard, a senior guard, scored a career high and UCA Division I-record 41 points and the Bears connected on 13 three-pointers for the second straight game to run past the Incarnate Word Cardinals 92-76 in Southland Conference action in front of a crowd of 1,156.
Howard was 4 of 9 from three-point range and 15 of 17 at the free-throw line to lead the Bears to their second straight Southland Conference victory, which improved their record to 3-2 in league play. UCA is now 9-9 overall and moved to 6-1 at the Farris Center this season.
Howard, UCA's career three-point leader, and the top three-point shooter in SLC history after last Saturday's game, led a group of five players with multiple three-pointers as UCA made double-digit threes for the ninth time this season. The Bears are the top three-point shooting team in the conference and did nothing to hurt that ranking Wednesday night.
"I was feeling good, I had a good warmup, mentally I was good,' said Howard, who now has 336 career three-pointers and became just the sixth Bear to score at least 40 points in a game and the first since Rodney Dean in 1998. "I just knew this was a game we needed to win, especially coming off the last win. We had a lot of momentum. Just coming in confident. We had a really good practice, we were moving a lot on offense. So yeah, I thought we came in and executed really well.'
Five different Bears made three-pointers in the first half as UCA shot 57.1 percent (8 of 14) from beyond the arc, with Howard going 3 for 5 and junior Thatch Unruh 2 of 4. UCA led by as much as 24 points in the opening half and held the Cardinals (5-9, 0-4) to just 38 percent shooting. UCA led 53-30 at the break, but also had a 17-point halftime lead against UIW last season before losing 81-80 at the Farris Center.
The Cardinals, who have now lost six straight games, fought back early in the second half, despite playing without their leading scorer Simi Socks. UIW cut UCA's lead to just seven points twice behind the scoring of junior Charles Brown, who had 19 of his 24 points in the second half, most of those coming in the first eight minutes. But the Bears, with Howard making numerous trips to the foul line, pushed the lead back to as much as 18 points and cruised to the victory, their first ever over the Cardinals in seven matchups.
"I told the guys in the locker room, winning a conference game is difficult,' said UCA head coach Russ Pennell. "I don't care where you're playing it, who you're playing against. I think the big thing we have to remember in sports is, momentum is a crazy thing. The Falcons last year in the Super Bowl, Georgia on Monday night. All of a sudden it can change.
"And the thing I was most proud of was, we kind of regrouped. I told them at the 12-minute mark when they had cut it to seven, I told them, you have to forget what's happened to this point. You can't say, we've blown a 25-point lead. We have to come back and play from this point on. And I thought from that point on, we were pretty good.'
"In conference, everybody is good,' said Howard. "We can have a good half but they can come out and punch us in the mouth like they did. So we were just preaching composure, because last year we were up 17 and they came back and beat us. So we just wanted to make sure we were consistent, and when they punched us in the mouth, we came back and retaliated. So that was good for us to mature and experience something like that because teams are going to go on runs. It's just how we respond to them.'
Howard had help from a lot of Bears, including 7-foot freshman center Hayden Koval, who had 15 points, 8 rebounds and 6 blocked shots. Junior Thatch Unruh made 3 of 7 from three-poinr range and scored 11 points, while sophomore Aaron Weidenaar had a perfect shooting night, going 4 of 4 overall and 2 of 2 from beyond the arc for 10 points.
Senior Mathieu Kamba, battling the flu for most of the week, scored just two points but had 6 rebounds and a career-high 7 assists. Freshman DeAndre Jones, coming off a triple -double in the Bears' win over Lamar last Saturday, was close to a double-double with 9 points and 8 assists. UCA played its second straight game without senior Ethan Lee, out with a thumb injury.
"We have so many weapons,' Howard said. "And that's what I think, opening the floor up and running this motion (offense), getting a lot of movement has been good for us. It's been spacing the floor, opening the floor. I've even been getting open, and that opens up other guys as well. It's been really good.'
For UIW, Brown and Christian Peevy carried the load with 24 points apiece and a combined 17 rebounds. Sam Burmeister added 12 points for the Cardinals, who were just 4 of 22 (18.2 percent) from three-point range, including 0 of 6 from Shawn Johnson, who entered the game with a team-high 24 threes.
The Cardinals, the best free-throw shooting team in the SLC, went to the line 24 times and made 22 for 91.7 percent.
"I thought we shared the ball really well,' said Pennell. "I look here and we had 23 assists on 30 buckets, and that's what you want. I think the biggest thing with Aaron is opportunity. With Ethan (Lee) being out (with injury), it's kind of changed our rotation and it allows to get minutes for Aaron and Matthew (Mondesir) a little bit more. What I really want our fans to know is how patients Aaron has been. I know he's frustrated and I know he's wanted to play more. And I've needed to see a little bit more out of him and he's been giving it to us in practice.
"And to see him make those shots is very rewarding to me, because there's no one, outside of maybe Jordan, that spends more time on his game. He's in this gym all the time. And he's just a sophomore and we feel like he has a really, really good future ahead of him. And fortunately he's coming through right now when we need him.'
The nine overall victories is the most in the Pennell era.
"I'm proud of where our guys have come and what they're doing,' he said. "And we feel like we've left a few games out there, but maybe at the end of the year those pay off and you can win those games. But the guys are battling, they're giving us everything they have. And we're proud of them.'
UCA hits the road for another two-game road trip on Saturday, taking on the Nicholls Colonels at 3 p.m. Saturday in Thibodaux, La., and New Orleans at 7 p.m. Wednesday in New Orleans.
