EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Little Rock held off a pesky UT Martin club in an 82-77 win in an Ohio Valley Conference Tournament quarterfinal game Thursday night at the Ford Center.
The Trojans advance to the semifinals to play No. 1 seed Southeast Missouri at 7 p.m., Friday. Little Rock (19-13) split two games with the Redhawks in the regular season.
"We have to make shots," Trojans head coach
Darrell Walker said. "When we lost to them, they shot 39 percent, and we were below that. We didn't make shots, and I told [assistant coach
Charles Baker] you can't win when you shoot 29 percent. If we make our shots and rebound the basketball decently, we will be fine."
Hitting shots wasn't a problem Thursday night. The Trojans shot 29-of-58 (50%) from the field and 11-of-22 (50%) from the three-point line.
Senior LSU transfer
Mwani Wilkinson came out hot scoring 17 of his game-high 29 points in the first half. He was 7-of-12 from beyond the arc. Junior
Johnathan Lawson hit 3-of-6 from the three-point line on his way to 21 points. Lawson also totaled 8 assists, 5 rebounds and 5 steals. Senior forward
Tuongthach Gatkek recorded another double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds. He also dished out 5 assists.
UT Martin star guard Tarence Guinyard, who scored 17 points, gave the Skyhawks their first lead of the second half at the 9:46 mark when he made three free throws after being fouled while shooting a three-pointer. UT Martin led 62-61 and were up five less than a minute later after hitting a three-pointer following a turnover.
Little Rock wouldn't allow the Skyhawks to gain control and cut the led to 66-65 on a Lawson hoop with just over eight minutes to play.
The lead see-sawed and UTM was up 72-70 when Vladamir Salaridze, who scored 15 points, answered Lawson's three with a triple of his own.
However, the Trojans did take over down the stretch when Gatkek tied the game on a whirling jumper in the paint with 4:39 remaining. Little Rock outscored the Skyhawks 10-5 from that point on and Lawson's two free throws at the 1:29 mark put the Trojans up 79-73. UTM didn't threaten after that as Little Rock made 3-of-4 free throws to seal it.
Afan Trnka scored all 17 of his points in the first half to lead the Skyhawks.
