Men’s Basketball: Working well late – Hot-shooting UL downs UTA to advance – Radio,SBC TV 4:30 game

Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, March 15, 2012

NEW ORLEANS — Foul trouble was an issue early on.

But UL overcame it with strong bench play, solid 3-point shooting and a combined 63 points from Xavian Rimmer, Bryant Mbamala and Shawn Long in a 91-85 second-round Sun Belt Conference Tournament win over Texas-Arlington on Friday night at Lakefront Arena here.

Rimmer had 24 points, Mbamalu 20 and Long a 19-point, 17-rebound double-double for the 21-11 and No. 3 seed Ragin’ Cajuns, who advance to play No. 2 seed Western Kentucky in a CST-televised semifinal-round game at 4:30 this afternoon.

Top-seed Georgia State and Arkansas State meet in the other semifinal.

UL finished 12-of-21 on trey tries, tying its season-high for made 3-pointers.

“Tough basketball game,” UL coach Bob Marlin said. “Two teams that didn’t want to go home.

“Both teams fought,” Marlin said. “I thought we shot the ball extremely well. We won the three-point game, and really did a good job on the glass in the second half.”

UTA was within five points when Sun Belt regular-season scoring-leader Reger Dowell hit two free throws, part of his 25 points, to make it 85-80 with 29.4 seconds remaining.

But Long made two freebies with 27.3 seconds to go and Rimmer was 4-of-4 from the free-throw line in the final 12.1 seconds to seal the deal for the Cajuns, who led by as many as 14 points in the opening half but by only five at the break.

UL starting point guard Elfrid Payton finished with eight points but didn’t score his first two until driving for layup that put the Cajuns up 57-48 with 16:25 remaining.

The Cajuns again led by a game-high 14 at 65-51, but UTA stayed in it with a quick 7-0 run.

UL responded, though, as Long first hit a soft jumper that barely beat the shot clock and Rimmer followed with a 3-pointer.

UL led 46-41 at halftime despite foul issues not only for Payton but also Long and starting forward Elridge Moore.

Moore finished the half with three fouls and later fouled out with five points.

Payton picked up his second foul just two minutes and 42 seconds into the game, then sat for a long stretch before popping in for a couple of potentially dangerous cameos.

UL’s season scoring leader going into the game, Payton finished the half scoreless with just six minutes played.

Long picked up his second foul with 5:36 left before the break and Moore picked up his third 29 seconds later, and that’s when UTA twice trimmed a UL lead that stood at eight at the time – and had been as high as 12 – to as few as one.

But with UL leading 40-39 late in the half, Steven Wronkoski hit one trey and Rimmer hit another around a Mavs bucket to help the Cajuns going into halftime up by five.

Mbamalu finished the half with 10 points, Long and Rimmer both had nine and Wronkoski had eight off the bench.

Wronkoski was 2-of-2 on trey tries, Mbamalu was 3-for-4 and Long, Hayward Register and Kevin Brown each made one as UL went 8-for-14 from behind the long-distance in the opening half alone.

LAGNIAPPE: Long had his 35th double-double in his 64th career game. … Jamel Outler had a game-high 26 points for UTA, including 4-of-6 shooting on 3-pointers. … Mbamalu hit a heave from the opposite free-throw line, but it was taken well after the halftime buzzer had sounded. … The game got under way about an hour-and-a-half late because the prior game – Arkansas State’s 116-114 win over Arkansas-Little Rock – went a Sun Belt tourney-record four overtimes. Then there was an automatic half hour between games, and individual award presentations and finally introductions before play got under way around 10 p.m.