In a tough loss of a game, Coach Solomon Bozeman’s Golden Lions needed just one point Monday night to win against 14th-ranked Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.
That point didn’t come, and TCU won 73-72.
“This was a heartbreaker but we live and learn,” said Bozeman, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s basketball coach.
“Our guys did a great job completing and I am so proud of the way our guys played together but we didn’t get the job done. At the end of the day we wanted a victory.”
And not a moral victory — an actual victory that has “W” beside the score.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“We aren’t satisfied,” he said. “We don’t like the moral victories; we want the win.”
“It was one point so it’s back to the drawing board,” Bozeman said. “If we look at the positives, we played a ranked #14 that had a veteran return of 92% scoring last year.”
“Our guys compete,” he said. “They are together and they play really, really hard.”
Ultimately, TCU made more plays down the stretch that UAPB, Bozeman said.
The Lions don’t have much turnaround time to think about that TCU game. They host Hot Springs’ Champion Christian College tonight at 7 at H.O. Clemmons Arena.
Bozeman said his team studied the Champion Christian scout report on Tuesday and practiced getting shots up to prepare for the game.
He said this week was a “crazy one” for the team with four games in seven days with only one day between games to scout the next team, travel and rest. On Friday, UAPB travels to Norman, Okla., to play University of Oklahoma.
They travel to Starkville, Miss., on Saturday for a Sunday game against Mississippi State.
“One day of prep is definitely hard,” Bozeman said. “We are prepared because of our practices.
We had really hard practices. We rely a lot on our principles every day, but we’ve got to make sure we get ready. If they get rest, they are going to be good to go on game day.”