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NACOGDOCHES, Texas _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears now have one game under their belt without their starting point guard DeAndre Jones, out for the season with a knee injury, and it was a pretty solid effort.

The Bears lost a Southland Conference matchup 91-80 to second-place Sam Houston on Saturday afternoon at the Farris Center, but managed to cut a 21-point deficit down to just eight points with just more than three minutes to play before dropping their first conference game.

"I thought we handled it all right,' said UCA head coach Anthony Boone, who was also missing a second starter in graduate transfer center Samson George, who was out with an ankle injury. "Rylan (Bergersen) didn't get to have his normal game because he had a lot more responsibility on him, and we'll have to adjust a little bit to take some of the pressure off of him.

"We'll do that by having Eddy (Kayouloud) and maybe one or two other guys help bring the ball up the floor a little bit more in the game coming up.  But I think it didn't hurt us as much as we thought on the offensive end. It may have actually hurt us more on the defensive end, with us having some mismatches with us trying to guard a bunch of smaller, quick guys like Sam Houston has.'

The Bearkats lived on the perimeter last Saturday, making 13 three-pointers. UCA actually had a better overall shooting percentage, won the rebound battle by 12 and shot 24 more free-throws than the Bearkats. Bergersen led the Bears with 21 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists and was on the court for 37:33 of the 40 minutes. Only eight Bears saw action in the game, with four playing more than 31 minutes Senior Jared Chatham had his second double-double of the season with 19 points and a career-high 11 rebounds.

One of the top point guards in the Southland Conference, Jones is a four-year starter who has played in 100 games at UCA. He topped the career 1,000-point mark the previous week and is already UCA's all-time leader in assists and is just 11 shy of 500 for his career. He injured his knee in the first minute of UCA's win over New Orleans on Jan. 6.

Game 2 of the Jones-less era comes at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday against Southland Conference preseason favorite Stephen F. Austin at Johnson Coliseum in Nacogdoches, Texas. The Bears and Lumberjacks will be meeting for the 24th time, with SFA dominating the series 21-2 after sweeping the two meetings a year ago. However, SFA had to use a controversial ending to beat the Bears 77-76 in last year's game in Conway, getting to the free-throw line with 2 seconds remaining and making the first shot to break the tie.

"They (SFA) don't have quite as much firepower on the perimeter as Sam Houston does,' Boone said. "They're a little bit bigger, and we'll have our challenges in that area, too, with how they attack the paint. Our post players will have to do a really good job there. But they do pressure a lot defensively, and that will be similar to how Sam Houston did, maybe even a little more out on the ball.

"So we might feel the effects of not having DJ a little more offensively in this game.'

SFA, due to covid-19 issues around the country and in the SLC, has played the fewest number of games of any league school and stands 5-2 overall and 1-0 in the league. The 'Jacks, like the Bears, had their first three games of the season canceled. Since then, they have recorded non-conference victories over LeTourneau, LSU-Alexandria and Midwestern State, along with a win over McNeese (designated a non-conference game) on Dec. 4 and their lone conference win over New Orleans. Their losses were to Baylor (83-52) and UL-Monroe (66-55).

Their 31-point loss at No. 2 Baylor was similar to UCA's 93-56 loss in Waco, Texas on Dec. 29. UCA also owns a road victory over McNeese (81-67) to open SLC play on Jan. 2.

"I'm not sure if that matters,' Boone said of the short schedule. "They know what their identity is. They're going to be good. They're established in what they do. So it don't think it matters that their schedule is not what a normal schedule might look like. It really doesn't matter. They're pretty good and they know it.'

Boone said the Bears will make the needed adjustments to finish out their final 13 SLC games without their floor leader, beginning Wednesday at SFA.

  "The guys will compete,' said Boone. "And we have what we think is a pretty good game plan against them, at least defensively, for how we're going to guard them. It's hard to replicate the pressure they put on people in practice, so we've prepared for it the best we can. We just know that we'll have to play strong, our guys are going to have to be tough and work as much as they can to not turn the ball over as much as SFA likes to turn their opponents over.'

The game will be carried live on The Bear 91.3 with Justin Acri and also on ESPN+.