HUNTSVILLE, Texas _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears had a hot start to the second half but could not sustain it Wednesday night in an 82-76 loss to the Sam Houston State Bearkats in Southland Conference play at Johnson Coliseum.

The Bears (7-9, 1-2) opened the second half with a 9-0 run to extend their 39-36 halftime lead to 48-36 in the first five minutes. But the Bearkats (7-8, 1-1) responded by outscoring the Bears 17-3 over the next 2:50 and regained the lead for good on Marcus Harris' third consecutive three-pointer with 12 minutes to play. Harris led SHSU with 15 points _ along with Jamal Willams _ going 4 of 6 from three-point range.

UCA cut it to one point on freshman Matthew Mondesir's layup at the 8:37 mark, and was within two points twice more before the Bearkats held on for the victory, their first in SLC play. UCA lost its second consecutive league game after opening with a victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi last Thursday.

"It was kind of the opposite of the Southeastern (Louisiana) game (last Sunday).. I thought our offense was pretty good and our defense was lousy,' said UCA head coach Russ Pennell. "We kind of got out of sync a little bit, and no excuses, but we didn't play (freshman center) Hayden (Koval), trying to rest that ankle. Then Ethan Lee hurt his thumb pretty badly. And then Tanner (Schmit) rolled his ankle. So all of a sudden your bigs are either not playing or limping up and down the floor. And that hurt us a little bit.

"And we just take some ill-advised shots, and I don't quite understand it. We pass the ball extremely well and then instead of sharing the ball, we're taking some hard shots. That was I thought the tale of the game, and down the stretch I thought they kind of out-toughed us.'  

The Bears put together two big scoring runs in the first half and eventually settled for a 39-36 halftime lead. Leading 12-11 with 15:10 left, the Bears got a three-pointer from sophomore Aaron Weidenaar and a steal and layup by freshman DeAndre Jones to spark a 9-0 spurt that gave UCA a 21-11 lead, their largest of the half, at the 11:20 mark.

SHSU answered that run with a 7-1 run that got the Bearkats back in it midway through the half. After SHSU cut the UCA lead to 30-29 with 4:40 to play, UCA went on another scoring run, this one a 9-2 stretch, starting with a steal by Mathieu Kamba and layup from Jordan Howard. Kamba then added a three-pointer for his first basket of the game, Howard made a jumper and Tanner Schmit put in a rebound basket to give the Bears a 39-31 lead heading into the final 1:30. 

SHSU's Abrian Edwards made a three-pointer and Jamal Williams put in a rebound to make it 39-36 with 25 seconds left. UCA played for one shot but missed at the buzzer. The Bears shot 40 percent overall and made 4 of 10 from three-point range in the opening 20 minutes, with Howard scoring 13 and Schmit 8. Howard finished with 25 points, becoming just the second UCA Bear to top the 2,000-point mark for his career. He now has  2,023 points, trailing school record-holder Clifton Bush by 134 points.

Senior Mathieu Kamba and junior Schmit finished with 11 points each, while junior Thatch Unruh had his first career double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds, also adding a game-high 6 assists. Senior Ethan Lee had 5 points, 4 rebounds and 2 steals before leaving in the second half with a thumb injury.
"One of the things I expected in the preseason is not coming to fruition right now,' said Pennell. "I thought we'd be a little bit better of an inside scoring team. (Freshman) Hayden (Koval) hasn't really developed that part yet, and (freshman) SK (Shittu) not being with us has hurt us a little bit. So I think we are really relying on the jump shot way too much. I think we're going to have to start driving the ball to the goal a little bit more. 

"We ve been working on that in practice, and I thought at times we did that tonight, but probably not enough. I thought Matthew Mondesir has a nice game and did some good stuff. He's a hard driver and can go make some plays. Maybe we can get him involved a little bit more. And I liked the way Aaron Weidenaar played. He can't quite get going with his jump shot but he drew a charge and played pretty tough. So some guys who have not played as much, I thought came in and did a pretty good job.'

"I thought (Thatch) left it all on the court and played hard. Thatch is steady, you know what you're going to get from him. He's going to give his best every night out and I was proud of his effort.'

UCA shot 40.3 percent overall and 27.3 percent (6 of 22) from three-point range. UCA was just 2 of 12 from beyond the arc in the second half. The Bears were 20 of 25 at the free-throw line but were outscored 39-14 off the bench and 18-10 on second-chance points as the Bearkats pulled down 15 offensive rebounds.

UCA continues its road trip at Lamar on Saturday afternoon. Tip-off is set for 4:30 at the Montagne Center.