Trojans Begin Conference Road Slate with UT Martin Thursday night

MARTIN, TENN.  - After ringing in the new year at home, the Little Rock men's basketball team plays its first games of 2025 on the road. The two-game road swing begins Thursday night at the University of Tennessee at Martin (5-8, 1-1) and concludes on Saturday afternoon at Tennessee State in Nashville, Tenn.
 
Thursday night's game tips off at 7:30 at the Kathleen and Tom Elam Center on the UT Martin campus. Pregame begins at 7:15 on 1067 Buz2 with Trey Schaap on the call. The game will also be streamed on ESPN+. 
 
The Trojans (7-5, 1-0) haven't played a game since Thursday Dec. 19 when they knocked off SIUE, 60-56, at the Jack Stephens Center. The scheduled home game on Dec. 21 vs. Eastern Illinois was postponed after Trojans student manager Josh Claxton was killed in a car accident earlier that morning. 
 
LAST TIME OUT
With the win over SIUE, Little Rock's OVC regular-season win streak grew to 10 games dating back to a victory over the Cougars (7-5, 0-1) last winter. 
 
Mwani Wilkinson led Little Rock with 16 points and 6 rebounds. Isaiah Lewis and Ante Beljan, who blocked four shots, totaled 13 points apiece Johnathan Lawson led the team with 10 rebounds and chipped in 12 points. He also dished out a game-high 7 assists. 
 
The Trojans led 30-22 at halftime and increased their lead early in the second half as Wilkinson hit a jumper on Little Rock's first possession, but he exited the game hobbling moments after. While he was sidelined, the margin grew to as many as 13.
 
A pair of SIUE free throws whittled the lead down to five with 1:34 remaining, but Wilkinson answered with a three-pointer to make it a 56-48 lead with just over a minute to play. Beljan added one of two free throws on the next possession and Little Rock led by nine. 
 
However, some Little Rock missed free throws down the stretch kept the door open for SIUE, and they only trailed by three with nine seconds left, but Beljan hit a free throw to push the lead to four with under a second left. 
 
BLOCK PARTY
The Trojans blocked eight shots in the win over SIUE as a part of a defensive effort which held the Cougars under 30% from the field. Beljan swatted four shots and Tuongthach Gatkek blocked two. Wilkinson turned in a spectacular block on a fastbreak that was highlighted on ESPN.com. 
 
A FAST START 
The Trojans haven't started OVC play 2-0 since joining the league two years ago. That could change Thursday night. The Trojans are now 2-1 in OVC openers with the victory over SIUE.
 
IRON MEN
Two Trojans are in the Top 5 of the Ohio Valley Conference in minutes played. Johnathan Lawson leads the league averaging 36.5 minutes per game. Mwani Wilkinson is fourth with 33.5 minutes. Isaiah Lewis is seventh with 32.3. 
 
SERIES HISTORY
The Trojans lead the series 6-2. Four of those meetings, all home wins, came before Little Rock joined the OVC two years ago. UT Martin is winless at Little Rock, but has won both meetings on its home court, both conference games. The Skyhawks won 77-72 at home last season.
 
UTM AT A GLANCE
The Skyhawks are looking to continue winning ways under a new coach. Ryan Ridder, who led UT Martin to a 14-4 conference mark and a school-record 21 wins last season,  took the head-coaching job at Mercer in March.
 
UTM named Jeremy Shulman, a Nashville, Tenn., native, its head coach on March, 27, 2024. He had served as the Eastern Florida (Melbourne, Fla.) State head coach for 14 seasons with the program dominating the junior college ranks. Shulman became the school's all-time wins leader with 346 victories and his teams made two NJCAA Division I Final Four and three Elite Eight appearances. Shulman is the nephew of first-year Central Arkansas head coach John Shulman, who spent stints at Chattanooga and Alabama-Huntsville before coming to Conway last year. 
 
The Skyhawks are coming off an historic 77-46 win at Southern Indiana. The 31-point win was the largest margin of victory by a UTM team in OVC play. 
 
Florida junior college transfer guard Tarence Guinyard led the Skyhawks with 28 points. The 6-foot-1 junior from Tampa, Fla., led UTM in scoring five straight games. Josue Grullon scored 20 in the win. 
UT Martin was close to starting the OVC season undefeated but dropped its opener at Morehead State, 70-69.
 
The Skyhawks started the regular season 2-0, including a season-opening win at Illinois State, but then dropped six straight games. They stopped the streak with a lopsided home win over NAIA program Montreat (N.C.) College, but then lost in overtime at Alabama State before rebounding in a blowout of Champion (Arkansas) Christian, an Association of Christian College Athletics Association program, to close out the nonconference slate. 
 
Thirteen of the Skyhawks' players hail from outside of the United States with many transferring from Florida junior colleges, including Eastern Florida State. 
 
Grullon, a 6-foot-5 forward from the Dominican Republic, leads UTM in scoring with 16.8 ppg. Guinyard isn't far behind with 16.3 ppg.