Another big night from Taylor lifts Bears to win late over Bellarmine

CONWAY, Ark. — Central Arkansas overcame two eight-point deficits and eventually connected on 6-of-7 free-throw attempts in the final 34 seconds Saturday to hold off the Bellarmine Knights, 71-65, in Atlantic Sun Conference action at the Farris Center.

Freshman Layne Taylor made all six of those free throws to give him a career-high 29 points as UCA improved to 1-1 in ASUN play with the hard-fought win. The first two free throws came off a technical foul on a Bellarmine player, the team’s second of the game. The next four all came on common fouls.

Senior Elias Cato then sealed it with a basket with11.8 remaining. Cato added 21 points and seven rebounds. The Bears made 10 three-pointers on the day, with Taylor making five. That helped offset Bellarmine’s 10 of 30, with five of those coming from junior guard Billy Smith.

UCA (5-10, 1-1) was playing just two days after a double-overtime loss to Eastern Kentucky on Thursday night and still playing through numerous injuries.

UCA Bears coach John Shulman on the sidelines against Eastern Kentucky at the Farris Center in Conway, Ark. / Ted McClenning-AllBears+ Images

“I couldn’t be more proud of our kids for finding a way to win when it looked very bleak,” said UCA coach John Shulman. “We don’t flinch. We’ve been through so much adversity, and we don’t flinch and we don’t blink. We just keep playing.”

The Bears trailed by as much as eight points in the first half but Taylor nailed a three at the buzzer to close the deficit to just one at 31-30. The Knights (3-12, 0-2) then pushed their lead back out to as much as eight points again before the Bears fought back yet again. Down 49-41, UCA went on an 11-0 run to grab a 52-49 lead with 7:30 to play.

UCA took advantage of a technical foul on Bellarmine’s head coach with 1:05 left to go up seven with 56.2 left. But a three-pointer by Bellarmine’s Ben Johnson cut the lead to just two points with 34.8 left. After the second technical, UCA outscored Bellarmine 8-4 to end it.

“When you have a one-day prep, for a team like Bellarmine, that’s impossible,” said Shulman. “Because they are impossible to prep for. You have one day, and you’re heart-broken from Thursday, you’re fatigued. It’s (like) a root canal to play against them. And then you’re down eight.

“It’s like football, if you’re down a touchdown to a wishbone team, you might never get the ball back. They took that thing down to a second or two on the shot clock. It’s like you never can get the ball back. I didn’t know if we enough oomph to press, but we didn’t have another choice.

“And we got some energy pressing. And that’s how we want to play anyway, it’s just hard to do it with seven guys. But our guys have done a really good job of figuring it out on the fly.”

UCA now hits the road for four consecutive conference games, beginning Thursday at Stetson in DeLand, Fla.

“I challenged them at halftime,” said Shulman. “Hey guys, we haven’t had serious big-boy talks but now it’s time ot have a serious big-boy talk. If we want to play in March and play in the ASUN Tournament, this one is going to be really important when we look at things in March. Because we don’t play them anymore.

“This is a one-time deal with Bellarmine and Eastern Kentucky. So we have to take care of business. And we did today.”

The Bears shot 40 percent for the game and made 10 of 34 from three-point range. UCA won the rebound battle 38-35, with sophomore Michael Evbagharu pulling down a career-high nine and Cato adding seven. The Bears also scored 21 points off 14 Bellarmine turnovers.

Information from UCA Sports is included in this story.