PSCOMB

NASHVILLE, Tenn. _ With their ASUN Tournament seeding already wrapped up, the University of Central Arkansas Bears dropped their regular-season finale on Saturday, losing 81-66 to the Lipscomb Bisons at Allen Arena.

The loss did not affect the Bears' seeding in next week's tournament. UCA was already the No. 3 seed from the West Division, which means a home game in the first round on Tuesday night. The Bears will host East No. 6 Stetson at 6 p.m. on Scottie Pippen Court. The Bears won the first meeting 79-75 back on Feb. 5.

"This was a very, very odd situation to be in,' said UCA head coach Anthony Boone, whose team was picked 11th and 12th in the two ASUN preseason polls. "Knowing that Coop (Collin Cooper) needed to be in limited minutes with his ankle, we didn't have Cam (Hunter), DayDay (Darious Hall) was coming back and we knew he would be rusty. And Ibbe (Klintman) was going to be limited.

"It was a really strange day. But I did think we came out in the first half and had great effort, especially defensively.'

The Bears led 33-31 at halftime after holding the Bisons to just 29.7 percent shooting. The only Lipscomb player they did not slow down was Trae Benham, who was 4 of 6 from three-point range and had 16 points at the break. UCA, which rested freshman point guard and leading scorer Camren Hunter, got points from eight different players, including junior Darious Hall, who had missed the past two games with an injury.

The Bisons came out with a much better offensive approach in the second half, shooting a blistering 62.9 percent after halftime. Benham finished with 26 points, going 6 of 12 from beyond the arc.

"Of course, Lipscomb was going to make an offensive push,' said Boone. "(Ahsan) Asadullah was going to get the ball more and he was going to do his thing. But I think we had about an eight-minute stretch there where we just kind of, I don't know, it was like we were sleepwalking.

"We can't have that. That was the difference in the first half and the second half.'

Kayouloud finished with 22 points and went 4 of 5 from three-point range. Kayouloud scored 40 points and went 5 of 6 from beyond the arc in two games vs. Lipscomb. Hall finished with 11 points and 9 rebounds but fouled out in 29 minutes of action. Cooper, a sophomore from Fayetteville, played 21 minutes after spraining his ankle at North Alabama on Wednesday.

"Coop played a little more than I was planning,' said Boone. "I was very nervous seeing him out on the floor but he did well. And with Eddy... big guys are afraid of him going around them so they want to give him a little bit of a cushion. And he usually can shoot a pretty good set shot, and it's a good shot. He's worked on it and he's been making it in practice, so he's got that freedom. And he does a good job with shot selection, also.'

The Bears, in their first year in the ASUN, secured the No. 3 seed (of six) from the West Division with Wednesday's win at North Alabama. The UCA-Stetson winner will advance to face East No. 2 Jacksonville in the second round, on a quick turnaround. The second-round matchup will be played Thursday night at Swisher Gymnasium.

"I told our guys, we can't have that eight-minute stretch like we had in the second half today, because every team in this conference can beat anybody at any place,' said Boone. "Anybody could come into our gym on Tuesday and have a good chance of winning, and if we win Tuesday, we could go anywhere in the conference on Thursday and have a chance of winning.

"It just depends on having that focus for the whole game, 40, or more, minutes as we saw today in games around the ASUN. And (the format) is very, very challenging, especially for the teams that don't get that buy in the first round. But it's not impossible. So we're going to gear up and get ready.'