CONWAY, Ark. _ In a game that went down to the wire Monday night, the UAPB Golden Lions got the final basket to pull out an 85-83 victory over the University of Central Arkansas Bears in front of a raucous crowd of 2,895 at the Farris Center.

UAPB (3-1) got a jumper from guard Rashad Williams with 13 seconds left and UCA misfired on a pair of three-pointers in the final seconds. Williams led the Golden Lions with 28 points, hitting 5 of 11 from three-point range. UCA countered with four players in double figures, led by junior Elias Cato with 22 points on 7-of-10 shooting.

UCA was dominant on the boards, out-rebounding UAPB 46-30, with 17 offensive boards that led to 18 second-chance points. 

The Bears played again without All-ASUN guard Camren Hunter and sophomore Carl Daughtery, Jr., both due to injuries.

"We weren't shooting the ball well, we're still trying to solve that," said UCA head coach Anthony Boone. "But we did make a great effort on the glass, and that was great to see. We settled in and played some pretty good defense. UAPB has some guys who can really put the ball in the hole, and even with good defense, they were able to make some tough shots."

The Bears trailed by as much as 12 points in the opening 20 minutes but closed the first half with a 16-0 scoring run to grab a 43-39 halftime lead. UCA shot 48.6 percent from the field and out-rebounded UAPB 24-11 for the half.

"We just told our guys to stick with it and we'll be able to string some stops together and we were able to do that and get ourselves back in the game," said Boone. "Just too many errors on our part. We turned the ball over too much, getting the technical foul and giving them two points. I told the guys, we could pick any two things that we messed up and that was the difference in the game. And we messed quite a few things up."

The Golden Lions started fast again in the second half, outscoring UCA 16-4 over the first five minutes. But once again, the Bears responded and re-took the lead at 59-57 on Javion Guy-King's three-point play with 12:00 to play. Guy-King, a freshman from Little Rock, finished with 15 points, 9 rebounds and 3 assists in his season debut after battling an injury for the first week.

The teams fought back and forth from there, with the largest lead at five points over the final 10 minutes. The game was tied four times in the final six minutes, with the last one at 72-72 after Cato made a pair of free throws. UCA fell behind 83-79 with 2:45 to play but Cato put in a jumper at the 1:30 mark, and Guy-King followed with a layup with just :41 remaining to tie it at 83-83.

Freshman Tucker Anderson from Centerton, Ark., scored 17 points and pulled down 6 rebounds for the Bears. Senior Masai Olowokere had 13 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists. UCA turned the ball over 19 times but matched that with 19 assists, led by Johannes Kirsipuu with five, and four players with three each.

UAPB had three players with at least 20 points, including Lonnell Martin and Kylen MIlton with 20 each. The Golden Lions made 12 three-pointers and shot 48 percent from beyond the three-point line.

"The guys did fight," said Boone. "And the core group we have has been through games like this where we've been down and we battled back. And that's been spreading to the new guys. And they stayed composed, despite the mistakes that we made, despite the tough shots those guys were making, they stayed composed, stayed with it.

"And they understood we could chip away and chip away and found ourselves back in the game and made it great game. And it was an exciting game, great environment here, just a great college basketball game. A great game to watch. It was tough being on the other end of it and not pulling it out, but it was a great game."

UCA hits the road for its next three games, beginning at Vanderbilt at 6 p.m. Friday in Nashville, Tenn.