UWA men fall to Montevallo

MONTEVALLO, Ala. – West Alabama men’s basketball fell 85-67 to Montevallo in its first road test of the season on Friday.

Montevallo (2-0) controlled the first half by shooting 65 percent from the field while holding West Alabama (1-1) to 39 percent to take a 49-35 lead at the break. The Falcons out-rebounded the tigers 37-25.

“We just got out-toughed around the basket tonight,” said UWA head men’s basketball coach Mark Downey.

“It’s still a learning process for us. We didn’t execute like we needed to and when they got rolling, it really hurt us. We didn’t do many things tonight that we needed to win. We kept it around a 10 or 12 point deficit for most of the night, but just could not get a run going.”

Five different Falcons posted double-digit scoring marks with Shykeem Jackson leading the pack with 20. Shykeem finished perfect (6-for-6) at the free-throw line and 4-for-5 from behind the three-point arc; 6-for-8 from the field.

Sandy Underwood tallied 20 points in the second half to lead the Tigers with 28. He shot 8-for-12 from the field in the second half to end 10-for-21 overall. Desmond Raymond led the Tiger offense in the first half where he recorded all of his 11 points.

Mychael Bester finished perfect from the field shooting 4-for-4; 1-for-1 behind the arc.

The Tigers continue with the second leg of a three game road stretch with an exhibition matchup against Conference USA opponent Texas El-Paso on Sunday. Tipoff is set for 4:00 p.m. (C.S.T.) at the Foster Stevens Basketball Center.

“We just have to take this as a learning point,” said Downey. “If we got out-toughed tonight, then UTEP is going to really get at us. We are going to have to learn from it, but most importantly improve from it. “