Up next: UALR back on the road to face Louisiana-Monroe

BURN THE HORSE

UALR (6-11)
vs. ULM (2-15)
7:30 p.m. Thursday
Monroe, La.

UALR travels to Monroe, La., Thursday night for a Sun Belt Conference matchup with Louisiana-Monroe. A few weeks ago, this looked like an easy victory. Then Monroe lost close home games to Western Kentucky and Arkansas State and won at Florida International.

Now we’re not so sure.



Monroe is 2-15 on the season and 1-3 in the Sun Belt. But the Warhawks are 0-7 at home losing to some decent teams, some average teams and NCAA Division II Harding.

But the Warhawks led Mississippi State in the second half, led Tennessee in the second half, and were tied with Texas A&M in the second half. They also led Arkansas State  by nine at halftime. Any of that sound familiar?

Fred Brown

And they’ve played better of late. They definitely could have beaten WKU before losing in overtime. They definitely could have beaten ASU before losing on a late shot. And they did beat FIU in Miami.

Monroe will likely start four guards and, if Saturday’s victory at FIU is any indication, will ride them hard. The bench accounted for only 16 minutes in that game with Fred Brown, Trent Mackey, Charles Winborne, Steven McClellan and Hugh Mingo going most of the way.

Brown’s been around for a long time. As a 6-2 senior, he leads Monroe at 13.2 points per game.
Winborne (6-1 sophomore) is second in scoring at 10.6 points. And only McClellan (6-7 sophomore) is above 6-3. Winborne and Mackey are the best three-point options, both taking 3-4 per game and shooting above 40 percent.

There’s a little height off the bench with 6-8 senior Christian Bibi Ndongo and 6-10 senior Fabio Ribeiro. Both have been bigger contributors than they were on Saturday night at FIU.

ULM is playing with just nine scholarship players this season and is banned from postseason due to NCAA APR sanctions.