CONWAY, Ark. _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears thoroughly enjoyed their long-awaited home opener on Saturday afternoon, rolling to a 92-28 victory over outmanned Champion Christian at the Farris Center.

UCA (1-6), coming off a demanding six-game road swing against mostly high major programs, dominated the Tigers (2-0), who compete in the National Christian College Athletic Association and count the game as an exhibition. The Bears led 50-11 at halftime after putting together a ridiculous 46-6 run to end the first half after Champion Christian led briefly at 5-4.

UCA had 10 players score in the first half, led by senior guard Rylan Bergersen with nine points. The Tigers turned the ball over 15 times in the opening 20 minutes and shot just 14.3 percent (3 of 21) from the field and 11.1 percent (1 of 9) from three-point range, less than 24 hours after losing 78-50 at Little Rock.

The Bears went 19 of 33 (57.6 percent) from the field and made 9 of 10 at the free-throw line in the first half. For the game, UCA shot a season-best 53.8 percent and connected eight times from three-point range.

"The guys came out pretty focused today,' said UCA head coach Anthony Boone. "And it would have been easy for them not to be, considering who we have played. But this team is definitely maturing. We challenged them to play not against a name or an opponent or even a certain level a team may be on. But to just go against our standard and to try to play up to our standard.

"That was the challenge and they answered it I would say better than I expected.'

The game was decided by halftime but the Bears continued to execute offensively and defensively in the second half, while playing every player who was available. UCA had 13 of its 14 players in the scoring column, with 10 players scoring at least six points. Bergersen led the way with 13 points and sophomore Khaleem Bennett added a season-high 12. 

Redshirt freshman center Jonas Munson and freshman guard Kragen Bradley scored their first career points, while freshman Brendan Simmons came off the bench and nailed a pair of three-pointers. No UCA player had more than Bergersen's 25 minutes of action. The Tigers had no players in double figures, with Ariyon Williams leading the way with 8 points on 2-of-10 shooting.

The Bears flirted with the school record for scoring margin, which is 77 points set in a 142-65 win over Philander Smith in 1990.
 
Boone said the halftime speech, with his team leading by a whopping 39 points, was simple.

"The same message as we said beforehand,' said Boone. "We're not playing the scoreboard, we're not playing an opponent, we're playing our standard. We want to keep doing what's good for us. We've had a number of games where we've done well and then kind of gone away from what got us leads in some of those games earlier on. 

"So we challenged the guys to just keep doing what we've been doing. And the guys were focused. I would say they just had a resolve to continue the dominance we had going in the game.

"One thing that was very encouraging is how close this group it and how much they pull for each other. That's tough. In a sport like basketball, a lot of these kids grow up and they're told you have to do this, you have to do that, you have to get minutes, you have to put points on the board. And they see their teammates get on the floor and they're cheering for them as hard as if we were going for a national championship.

"And that was very encouraging to see our guys support each other.'
 
The Bears will take a 10-day holiday break before the going gets considerably tougher when they take on the No. 2 Baylor Bears on Dec. 29 at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas. Southland Conference play follows on Jan. 2 at McNeese in Lake Charles, La.

"We just want to keep getting better,' said Boone. "And even going to play Baylor, we're not necessarily playing against Baylor. We're trying to play to our standard, and that's what we're going to focus on. It's doing what we do, being who we are, playing the way we play.'