THIBODAUX, La. _ A second-half scoring drought was the difference Saturday in the University of Central Arkansas' 79-68 loss to the Nicholls Colonels in Southland Conference play at Stopher Gym.

The Bears, down 37-30 at halftime, stayed with the first-place Colonels until the midway mark of the second half, trailing just 48-44. But the Colonels (13-6, 10-2) exploded with a 22-5 run and pulled away to their third straight win and 10th in their last 11 games. UCA (3-16, 2-9) got it back to within 10 points late in the game but could not get any closer.

"We made some strides today,' said UCA head coach Anthony Boone. "And a lot of that was driven by the guys. We worked on some things in practice this week, but with the weather, there were a couple of times we couldn't be with them. And we had to depend on them to lead themselves through some things. And we got better this week.

"I hate that we didn't win this game, and I hate that we didn't have a chance at the end to try to make something happen. But we did get better. And the crazy thing is, we still have our ultimate goal of getting to the conference tournament in front of us.'

The Bears had three players score in double figures, led by senior guard Rylan Bergersen with 20 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists. Junior forward Eddy Kayouloud added 19 points, 7 rebounds and 3 steals, while sophomore guard Collin Cooper scored 16. Senior forward Jared Chatham pulled down double-digit rebounds (11) for the second consecutive game against the Colonels after his career-high 18 back on Jan. 16 at the Farris Center.

UCA made 11 of 24 from three-point range, shooting better from beyond the arc (45.8 percent) than overall (40.7 percent). Nicholls went just 9 of 31 (29 percent) from three-point range but offset that by scoring 40 points in the paint.

"Eddy has been playing well, he's been playing very well,' said Boone. "He still made a couple of mistakes, like everybody does _ no one's going to play a perfect game _ but Eddy was pretty locked in, and we certainly need him to be that way to have a chance in any game.'

After falling behind 8-0 to open the game, the Bears fought back and took their first lead of the game at 20-19 on Khaleem Bennett's dunk with 9:20 left in the half. The teams traded leads the rest of the half before the Colonels held the Bears scoreless the last 4:30 to grab the 37-30 lead at the break.

"Again, we made some strides,' Boone said. "But (in the second half) we let them get into us a little bit, and they frustrated us a little bit, then we started making bad decisions. We have to continue to build on what we worked on this past week, ways we got better, the way we played in the first half. And even the beginning of the second half. We were making plays for each other.'

UCA, which dominated the rebounding in the first matchup (41-34), was outrebounded 43-36 on Saturday, with the Colonels grabbing 14 on the offensive end. Ty Gordon and Andre Jones combined for 46 points for the Colonels, who also got 14 points and 11 rebounds from center Ryghe Lyons, including 12 points and 7 boards in the first half. 

UCA continues its road trip at New Orleans on Monday night. Tip-off with the Privateers is set for 7 p.m. at Lakefront Arena in a game rescheduled from Feb. 10.