SAN ANTONIO, Texas  _  Another solid all-around effort earned the University of Central Arkansas Bears a 77-60 victory over the Incarnate Word Cardinals in Southland Conference action Wednesday night at the McDermott Center.

The Bears (8-10) carried over their balanced effort from Saturday's win over Lamar, getting across-the-board scoring and pulling away from the Cardinals (6-11) in the second half. UCA improved to 3-2 in SLC play with their second conference road victory and first ever win in San Antonio.

"It's one of those things, it's hard to win conference games on the road,' said UCA head coach Russ Pennell. "And it's really hard to beat somebody bad on the road. And I wouldn't consider 77-60 a horrible loss for them (UIW), but for us to come and do that, especially the way we played the second half, I'm pretty pleased with that. And it was such a team contribution again. It looked a lot like the Lamar game the other night.'

The Bears took a 33-29 halftime lead after leading by as much as 10 points at the 8:00 mark of the half. Freshman Eddy Kayouloud had 10 first-half points, including a pair of three-pointers, while sophomore DeAndre Jones had 7 points, 4 rebounds and also made a pair of threes. Kayouloud would eventually lead the Bears in scoring with 18 points, going 3 of 5 from three-point range.

"I thought we made just enough mistakes in the first half to leave them in the game,' said Pennell. "But I think the second half we came out and locked down a little better defensively and we got some really quality offensive possessions. It was solid. We just got the ball where we wanted it. The guys really executed the offense well. The ball went side to side a lot, we made good decisions for the most part.'

The Bears, who also beat preseason No. 2 pick Southeastern Louisiana on the road two weeks ago, put together a 21-1 run in the second half to put the game away. UCA led by as much as 24 points after a Matthew Mondesir layup off a Jones assist with 4:12 remaining in the game. Mondesir finished with 11 points, 3 assists and 3 rebounds while Jones handed out a game-high 8 assists.

UCA shot 8 of 26 from three-point range, with five different players hitting at least one. Sophomore center Hayden Koval had 13 points, 7 rebounds and 2 blocked shots for the Bears, who scored 15 points off of UIW's 17 turnovers and scored 40 of their points in the paint. UCA outscored UIW 44-31 in the second half, shooting 55.2 percent from the field. The Bears led for all but 24 seconds in the game.

"I hope it means we're getting consistent,' said Pennell of UCA's second straight victory and second straight over the Cardinals. "But what I've learned over time is, about the time you think you've got something figured out, something gets broken. We just have to continue with the theme of playing hard, playing together. And when we do that, we're pretty good. 

"And they are starting to understand that. And that's the whole key to having a great team, when a team gets what's going on out there, and when it's not right, they can feel that and correct it.'

The Bears return home Saturday to host the Nicholls Colonels in a doubleheader with the Sugar Bears. Tip-off is approximately 4:30 at the Farris Center.