MONTICELLO, Ark. – SWOSU Men's Basketball made sure the longest road trip of the season was worth it after battling Arkansas Monticello in a makeup game for a previously postponed contest. The Bulldogs defeated UAM 55-51 in a physical matchup to secure their spot in the Great American Conference Tournament coming up March 3-6.
SWOSU's seed for the postseason tournament is still undecided, with potential standing implications still in play around the league with one week left of the regular season. The only thing the Dawgs know, is that they'll be in Shawnee that week where the tournament is hosted.
Tonight's matchup saw a physical, defensive game by both teams.
"When it's all said and done, our guys were tough enough to get another road win tonight in a physical game where we faced adversity," Head Coach Terry Evans said in his post-game interview. "That's 5-of-6 we've won in the state of Arkansas and I'm definitely proud of the guys for staying focused and getting the job done."
Though a low scoring affair, SWOSU got up by as many as 21 points around the 15:00 mark of the second half before UAM made their run.
The run was to be expected, as the Boll Weevils are also on the bubble for playoff contention and are playing must-win basketball from here on out. UAM immediately responded with an 11-0 run and continued to chip away from there.
"We had a chance to really blow it open in the second half, but we could not make any shots or free throws and that really hurt us. Thankfully though, we held up on defense. We gave up 71 (points) to them at our place, and 51 tonight and that was definitely the key that helped us get through our shooting trouble."
UAM had the game within a single possession with 1:30 remaining, but the Bulldogs proceeded to get two stops on defense to keep the lead intact. After Chris Braggs, Jr. missed a pair of free throws that would have pushed the lead back to four and kept things interesting, Mason Hart stepped up to the foul line with 14 seconds after another stop on defense to finally put the Boll Weevils away.
For the game, SWOSU shot 34% as a team and 32% from beyond the arc. This compared to 36% and 31% respectively from UAM. The Dawgs also edged out UAM in rebounding 32-28 and won the turnover battle 15-12.
The Bulldogs, now an even 10-10 in GAC play, will close out the season against ECU on Thursday and SNU on Saturday. With weather looming in the forecast, be sure to follow SWOSU Athletic social media pages and SWOSUAthletics.com for any updates on scheduling.
