ULM men looking to build a streak

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The ULM men hope to build a Sun Belt winning streak on Thursday when South Alabama (6-6) comes to Fant-Ewing Coliseum.

The Warhawks (2-7, 1-2) are coming off a big come from behind win over Florida Atlantic over the weekend. Sophomore Trent Mackey hit the game-winning 3-pointer with eight seconds left as ULM rallied from a 10-point deficit in the second half for the 65-64 win. Junior forward Jayon James had a season-high 26 points in the game with 10 rebounds, three steals and two assists in 32 minutes of action. Mackey put up 10 points, including five 3-pointers.

ULM has picked up its scoring pace, putting up at least 65 oints in its last two games and shooting 46.2 percent from the field and 48.1 percent from 3-point range.

South Alabama is coming off a home loss to Arkansas State, its first in Sun Belt play after beginning the year 3-0. The Jaguars rank second in the Sun Belt in scoring with 70.8 points per game and shoot 41.5 percent from the field.

Junior Augustine Rubit leads South Alabama. He's the Sun Belts' second leading scorer at 19 points per game and the conference leading rebounde with 10.8 per game. Xavier Roberson averages 13.6 points per game, and Mychal Ammons chips in 11.6 points and 7.5 rebounds per game.

In the teams' last meeting, ULM had its best offensive output of the 2011-12 season, but fell 88-86. The Jaguars hold an 8-4 lead in the all-time series and a 7-2 advantage since ULM joined the Sun Belt. The Warhawks last won in 2011 in Mobile.

 

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In some ways, Louisiana-Monroe - at least on paper - would appear to be the right opponent at the right time for South Alabama.


The Warhawks, whom USA plays Thursday night on the road, is 2-7 overall and 1-2 in Sun Belt Conference play, ranking fourth in the West Division. A closer examination of Monroe's stats sheet finds the Wasrhawks last in the conference in scoring offense, scoring margin, free throw percentage, offensive rebounds, offensive rebound percentage and blocked shots.

The Warhawks are next-to-last in the 11-team league in defensive rebounds, defensive rebound percentage, assists-to-turnover ratio, turnover margin, rebounding margin, field goal percentage defense and field goal percentage offense.

But Monroe has one thing in its favor against the Jaguars - it will be playing at home. That's where the Warhawks handed Florida Atlantic, a team with a six-point lead with 2:30 to play last Saturday, a one-point loss thanks to 3-point shooting, including a Trent Mackey trey with 10 seconds to play that was the difference in the 65-64 Monroe win.

"Any time you play on the road, I know it's clich?', but it's difficult,'' South Alabama interim head coach Jeff Price said Wednesday. "... I've always said college basketball is the toughest sport to play on the road. Hopefully we're prepared. We've had a good few days of practice and hopefully we've learned something from the last game, the things we didn't do well, and it's my job to see that we perform better.''

The Jags are coming off a disappointing 63-54 loss to Arkansas State at the Mitchell Center on Saturday, a game in which the Jags shot just 27 percent from the floor and was a terrible 4-of-27 from 3-point range.

"We've focused real hard,'' Price said. "It was just a bad offensive performance the other night for a lot of reasons. Not just because we didn't shoot the ball well, but I thought we were out of sync the whole game starting with changing the lineup. Dre Conner gets hurt and can't play and Mychal Ammons picks up three fouls in the first half.

"We were just never in rhythm and that's the way our shooting went as well - I mean 4-of-27 from the 3-point line. I thought we took too many bad shots, particularly early in the game, and that's on me to make sure we take better shots.''

Monroe is a team that sometimes grabs control of the game's tempo and it's usually not a pace the opponent would prefer to play.

"They are averaging in the 50s, so they are more of a slow-tempo team that has obviously struggled at times but finds a way to stay in games and found a way to beat FAU the other night,'' Said Price. "Any time you go on the road it's a tough game and they were down to FAU pretty much the whole game and at the end of the game, it happened so fast, (they hit) a couple of threes which they are capable of doing and game over. In the league you have to come ready to play our game and we need to be on top of our game when we go in there.''

The Jags will still be without Xavier Roberson, who was suspended for a violation of team and university rules prior to the Arkansas State game. "He's still suspended and (there's) no definite timetable,'' Price said. "It's just a wait-and-see process. ... That's where we're at right now and our guys know we've just got to move forward and handle some adversity. Everybody has to step up and get better.''

Conner sprained his ankle against Arkansas State but took part in half of the Jags' Wednesday practice session. He missed each of the practice sessions prior to Wednesday. "He should be good to go by (Thursday),'' Price said. "I think he can certainly help us in a lot of ways. He should be good to go. ... He turned his ankle in a freak accident in the game and he couldn't get back in. I actually turned around to put him in the game in the second half and he wasn't on the bench. He was with our trainer because he came out for warmups and he couldn't go. It was a lot worse than what we thought but he's steadily getting better.''