Little Rock drops a close game to Arkansas State
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.- Junior guard CJ White earned two career highs in the games against the Red Wolves. The two teams hold the longest active rivalry in the Sun Belt Conference, having their 92nd and 93rd meeting February 12th and February 13th. Little Rock dropped the game 67-65 after a close score the whole game.
The Red Wolves were scoring well over 50% and kept a lead of 10 plus points in the first half, but the Trojans kept fighting and closed the gap to two points in the last eight minutes. Junior forward Nikola Maric tied the game with a layup 65-65, with only 40 seconds left in the game. A-State player Christian Willis shot a jumper in the last 10 seconds bringing the score up to 67-65 with no time left for the Trojans to score more points.
Little Rock has 17 double-doubles this season, while ranked second nationally. Three teams in Little Rock’s conference are in the top-10 of double-doubles, Arkansas State is ranked sixth. Little Rock’s defense has been very important. They held opponents under 70 points in nine of the last 11 games, while making that 10 out of 13 games after this weekend. However, they are struggling to find their touch for shooting, getting an average of 64 points a game.
One of the most consistent players on the team, Maric, led the Trojans with 16 points. Maric was followed by White. He played an unbelievable ball game, getting a career high of 15 points while scoring 10 out of the 15 points in the second half. Senior guard Ben Coupet Jr. had a career high of 8 rebounds. Coupet is ranked fourth on the team averaging 9.5 points a game, scoring 7 points in Saturday’s game. Other Trojans (10-11, 6-8 Sun Belt Conference) scoring double figures were sophomore guard Marko Lukic with 14 points, and senior forward Ruot Monyyong with 13 points. Monyyong also added five rebounds, while being the Sun Belt’s active leader in rebounds.
Arkansas State(10-9, 7-5 Sun Belt Conference) had a 3-pointer field goal percentage of 50% while Little Rock only had a percentage of 32%. They had two players scoring double digits. Willis had a total of 12 points, while Marquis Eaton led the Red Wolves with 23 points. A-State’s top rebounder Omier got fouled out in the last two minutes of the game, having a total of six rebounds. Arkansas State’s rebounding threat Norchad Omier and Little Rock’s Monyyong challenged each other in the rivalry games this weekend. Omier ranks top five in the Sun Belt conference in rebounds per game, while Monyyong ranks seventh.
The Trojans put up a fight, but it wasn’t enough this weekend. They will have a chance to break their losing streak when they play against ULM in Monroe. Little Rock will be playing: Fri. Feb. 19th at 6 P.M. and Sat. Feb. 20th at 4 P.M.