SLC TOURNAMENT BRACKET
KATY, Texas _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears will carry some momentum into their first-round matchup with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Wednesday night at the 2019 Southland Conference Tournament.
The 7th-seeded Bears (13-18, 8-10) will take on the 6th-seeded Islanders (14-17, 9-9) at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Merrell Center in Katy, Texas, on ESPN+. The winner meets No. 3 Southeastern Louisiana in the quarterfinals at 7:30 Thursday.
The Bears have won three of their past four games, including a 91-87 road win over league champion and top-seeded Sam Houston State last Wednesday in Huntsville, Texas. The loss was just the second SLC loss for the Bearkats and just their second home loss of the season. UCA then closed out the regular season last Saturday with a 70-63 win over Northwestern State, also on the road, to earn its third consecutive trip to the SLC Tournament.
The Bears and Islanders met once during the regular season, with A&M-CC winning 87-75 on its home floor in the first SLC game of the season on Jan. 2. The Islanders are 4-4 in their past eight games, and 5-7 over the past 12, but have won three consecutive to finish the season, including a 76-69 victory over Houston Baptist on Saturday.
In the first meeting, the Bears connected on a season-high 15 three-pointers, with sophomore guard DeAndre Jones going 5 for 7 and senior guard Thatch Unruh 4 of 8. The difference was at the free-throw line where the Islanders made 27 of 35 while UCA was 10 of 12.
Jones led the Bears with 22 points while Unruh had 14 and sophomore center Hayden Koval added 12. Kareem South led four Islanders in double figures with 22 points.
Unruh, with a 30-point effort at Northwestern State, became the 20th UCA player in history to reach 1,000 points for his career. He now has 1,022 points in 124 career games. He is also No. 3 in school history in three-pointers with 179. Unruh was UCA's leading scorer in SLC games at 14.9 points per game. Jones topped a trio of Bears during the full season at 12.5 points per game, followed by Unruh (12.4) and Koval (12.3).
Koval was named Monday to the SLC All-Defensive team after leading the conference in blocked shots for the seconnd straight year. Unruh was an honorable mention All-SLC selection.
The Bears won their first-ever SLC Tournament game last year, beating the Lamar Cardinals 67-57 at the Merrell Center before being eliminated by Stephen F. Austin in the quarterfinals. The Bears held the Cardinals to just seven points over the final 11:41 of the game to secure the victory.
The Bears then won their first-round game in the CBI tournament, beating Seattle University 92-90 in overtime on the road before falling 80-59 to Jacksonville State at home at the Farris Center.
This year's squad is much younger than last year's, which featured UCA's all-time leading scorer Jordan Howard leading the way. This season two true freshman (Eddy Kayouloud, Khaleem Bennett) starting much of the year, along with Unruh and sophomores Koval and Jones. Kayouloud had a career-high 33 points against Troy and Bennett 21 against Hendrix. Jones scored 29 points in the road win over SFA and Koval had a pair of double-doubles against NSU and HBU. Unruh scored 30 and 33 in the two games against the Demons.
