By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

The Little Rock Trojans entered the UTSA Convocation Center Saturday coming off two straight unsightly road losses.

They made sure it didn’t happen again, rolling to second-half leads as large as 20 and 22 points, before holding off the Roadrunners 81-64.

Arguably, Little Rock won the game on the defensive end, limiting UTSA to 30 percent shooting, blocking nine shots and forcing 17 turnovers.

Forward Ante Beljan led Little Rock with a career-high 21 points and guard Mwani Wilkinson scored 19. Also, guards Isaiah Lewis scored 16 and Johnathan Lawson had 15.

Primo Spears finished with 15 to lead the Roadrunners. Marcus Millender added 12, while Naz Mahmoud and Sky Wicks contributed 10 each. The Roadrunners played without forward Raekwon Horton and guards Damari Monsanto and Tai’Reon Joseph.

Joseph is ineligible at the moment, having sat out all three of the Roadrunners’ games. It’s believed he might be out at least another four games before he can return. But the absence of Horton and Monsanto, two starters, came as a surprise.

“We had a couple of guys out,” first-year UTSA coach Austin Claunch said. “Listen, at the end of the day, they’ll be back. We expect all of them back, come Monday. You know, it is what it is. There’s things we want to uphold. There’s a standard we want to uphold.

“Those guys have done it, and at the end of the day, when you don’t do it, there’s certain things (that will happen). You know, it’s a privilege to play at UTSA.”

Claunch didn’t go into detail on why he apparently took actions that left his team short-handed. Instead of specifics, he spoke in his postgame news conference in generalities about how his players “are trying to do something that’s hard … and it gets so frustrating.”

Seated in the interview room flanked by Millender and Mahmoud, Claunch continued, “Sometimes, (players) want to win so bad. These guys sitting next to me and all those guys in the locker room, it takes time, to get to where they want to (go and to realize) the dreams they want to talk about. We talk about winning and cutting down these nets and all that.

“(But) it’s hard to win one game. It’s hard to win one college basketball game.

“And then when you get used to it and you start to get a feel, it becomes a little bit easier each time. But we just got to keep chipping, man. It’s the stone cutter. Right? You don’t ever know. You don’t ever know when the last blow, the last hit, (when) you’re going to find gold over there.”

Records

Little Rock 2-2
UTSA 1-2

Coming up

UTSA at Troy, Ala., Nov. 25
UTSA vs. Merrimack, at Troy, Nov. 27

Halftime

Little Rock entered the game with UTSA coming off losses at Winthrop, S.C., 82-67, and at Arkansas State, 80-63. Sparked by Wilkinson and Beljan, the Trojans surged on a 16-0 run late in the first half to take charge against the Roadrunners.

After giving up five points to the Roadrunners in the closing few minutes, the Trojans went into the dressing room with a 36-26 intermission lead.

Beljan started the streak, innocently enough, with a free throw. But after that, Little Rock started to roll.

First, Wilkinson hit a three and then Beljan sank a layup. Wilkinson knocked in another three and Beljan followed with another inside move.

Lewis broke loose for a fast break layup and was fouled, and then he hit the free throw. Creed Williamson, the son of former NBA player Corliss Williamson, added a layup with 2:40 remaining for a 36-21 advantage.

Little Rock’s defense limited UTSA to 19 percent shooting (5 of 26) in the first half. UTSA hit 2 of 12 from three. At that juncture, Millender led the Roadrunners with seven points.

For the Trojans, who shot 45 percent from the floor in the half, Lewis had nine points and Lawson eight. Primo Spears, who had scored 47 points combined in the team’s first two games, finished the half with six.

Notable

Little Rock has been without injured star guard Khaleen “KK” Robinson since mid-October and another starter, Jordan Jefferson, sat out against UTSA.

The loss of Robinson, a first-team, all-conference player in the Ohio Valley last year, will hurt the Trojans moving forward. He is out indefinitely with a knee injury.

“It happened about two weeks before the season started, we lost our best player,” Trojans coach Darrell Walker said. “We’re still trying to figure our team out, but this was a good road win for us tonight. It really was.”

Walker, in his seventh season at Little Rock, recently received a three-year contract extension. “It’s good to have it, starting off a new season,” he said. “I’m happy that the athletic director had enough belief in me to get it done.”

The Roadrunners started the season on Nov. 4 with a 103-77 victory at home over Division III Trinity University. Their next game, another home date set originally for Nov. 9, was postponed when the visiting the North Dakota Fighting Hawks encountered weather- and travel-related issues.

The two sides have agreed to try and play the makeup on Dec. 13 in San Antonio, but it’s not on the UTSA schedule yet because a contract hasn’t been formalized.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday night, the Roadrunners played their first road game of the season and lost 85-72 to the Bradley Braves. Now, after the loss to the Trojans, UTSA remains winless against NCAA Division I competition at 0-2.

Quotable

“Give Little Rock a lot of credit,” Claunch said. “They out-played us. Out-toughed us. You know, we did some good things early on, again, similar to the Bradley game. And then at some point, they went on that run. We got to be able to withstand those a little bit better.”

Once again, shooting woes plagued the Roadrunners, who are hitting 38 percent from the field through their first three games.

“I just thought in the first half we missed some shots that we normally make, and that sort of got us out of rhythm. I mean, we were 10 of 31 from two(-point range). We probably made a couple late. At one point, we had nine field goals with like 15 minutes left in the game. They’re a good shot-blocking team. You look, percentage-wise, they’re top 20 in the country. I just thought we missed a couple of chippies that we normally make.”

In addition, the Trojans hit 52.7 percent from the field, meaning that UTSA is now yielding 51.1 percent per game for the season.

“I was really proud of these guys, coming out today short-handed and battling the way that they did,” Claunch said. “We had to battle through some things today, and when you’re trying to build and work on things, that’s part of it. You know, you got to go through tough days. There’s going to be high days. You don’t get there without the low days. This is certainly not how we wanted to perform at home, in front of our fans.

“Now, the good news is, we have some time, and we get a little over a week to go to Troy and play two really good teams. We didn’t do ourselves any favors (today). It’s not going to get any easier. Troy obviously is picked top two in the Sun Belt (Conference). Merrimack (transitioning into its first season in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) has won that (Northeast) league a couple of years. So, we got to be ready to go.”