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Next up for Corliss & Co. are the Skyhawks of UT Martin (formerly UT Junior College) at 7 p.m. tonight in the Farris Center.

UT Martin is best known for producing Pat Head Summitt, legendary man coach of the Tennessee Lady Vols. The court at UTM bears his her name.

UTM enters the game 2-6 with wins over NCAA D3-bound Centenary and MacMurray College, which is already D3, before dropping their last six.

The Skyhawks have lost at home to Lipscomb and are 0-5 on the road with losses at LSU, Memphis, Northwestern State, Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky. They have losses of 23, 22, 21 and 19 points to go along with eight and nine-point losses.

They have surrendered more than 100 points twice, losing 102-80 to Memphis and 103-94 to Northwestern State. Lipscomb hit them for 90. LSU, with a loss to Nicholls to its credit already this season, defeated UTM 79-56.

Their go-to guys are 6-3 senior guard Reuben Clayton (15 ppg, 5.6 rpg), 6-6 freshman guard Mike Liabo (13.3 ppg) and 6-5 senior forward Benzor Simmons (12 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 93.5 pct FT).

Last season Clayton had 18 points and 8 rebounds and Simmons added 9 points, 3 rebounds and 5 fouls as the Skyhawks lost 81-71 to the Bears. Tadre Sheppard went for 21 and 16. In their last trip to Conway, the Skyhawks won 84-65 led by future NBA'er Lester Hudson's 41 points and 10 rebounds back in '08.

Simmons is the most NBA-like of the current crop of Skyhawks. He is most often compared to Drew Gooden. Fortunately, it has nothing to do with basketball skill.





UTM also has a bit of local flavor with former Bigelow star Daron Hood, now a fifth-year senior. Hood redshirted his first year, has battled injuries in two other years and got just 36 minutes of playing time in the other. Did make three starts last year, however. Could possibly be in line for a token start.

Others of note:

Most Likely To Make Monty Rowell's Head Explode

Andres Irarrazabal (Pronounced "Ah hell, screw it")


Most Likely To See You Coming From His Left

Freshman forward Pierre Mopo

Least Likely To Look Like A Canadian Dude Named Dane Smith

Canadian guard Dane Smith (who may or may not have a freakishly-long hair coming out of his right cheek)

How many steps removed are the Skyhawks from Corliss?
Hudson (who has the only recorded quadruple-double in NCAA history, having put up 25 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals vs. Conway's very own Central Baptist in '07) spent time earlier this season with the Washington Wizards before getting cut in late November. One of the Wizards' assistant coaches is Sam Cassell. Cassell was once involved in a 9-player trade that sent him to the New Jersey Nets in exchange for, among others, Ed O'Bannon and Khalid Reeves.

Reeves started in the backcourt alongside Damon Stoudamire on the 1994 Arizona team that Corliss and the Razorbacks defeated in the Final Four before beating Duke in the national title game. O'Bannon played on the UCLA team that defeated Corliss' Hogs in the '95 title game. In a non-related item, Ed O'Bannon is allegedly rumored to be involved with Al-Qaeda and pedophilia.

Two students will compete for free Taco Bell tacos for a year at halftime. No word on if the winner will shoot for free Maalox and Charmin during the second half.

WOW...not a good first half. We trail 25-40!
What's up with Imahd? He only played 5 minuend has 0 pts. Of course it doesn't hurt that UTM is hitting 6/9 from 3.
Tadre is having a great game so far with 12 pts.

Bears are coming back!
5:24 left

UCA 50
UTM 59

A couple of good individual performances by Tadre and Dewan, but not a good performance overall.
Final
UCA 64
UTM 73

A SLC note, SHSU beat a pretty good UNT squad 92-74 tonight.

Bears outrebounded 45-25. That ain't going to win you many ball games - if any.

How did SH win if the other team scored 94?

My bad, 92-74. Is that better?

In Josh's defense, when I see scores I generally assume that they are listed in visitor-home order, and in this case would have guessed that SHSU was the home team.

Back to the Martin game, I was actually able to listen to some of the game (thanks to my new phone), and rebounding wasn't the only problem. Until a huge run late in the game, we were being outplayed in every way and just about every category. Monty couldn't even think of anything positive to talk about.

The fact that we just couldn't make a shot in the first half or 3s and free throws the entire game and we still only lost by 9 is really crazy. I went into Walmart and we were down huge. When I got out it was actually somewhat of a ballgame again. Glad that they didn't give up.

Sidenote: I know as a coach you generally tell your shooters to keep shooting it for their confidence. But at what point does the shooter eventually realize, "hey, I just don't have it tonight. instead of making just 27% of my shots, i'll quit shooting and pass the ball or hustle even harder for rebounds."?

In nobody's defense, the scores I read from the paper have the winning team with their score listed first, losing team with their score listed second. No designation of who is home team unless stated in the article or the byline. Maybe you guys could suggest your way of reporting scores to the papers to decipher who is home team - if that is important.