Follow @HBUBasketball

HOUSTON – Central Arkansas shot 70 percent from three in the first half and raced out to a halftime lead that was too much for HBU to overcome despite a strong second half as the Huskies fell to the Bears, 89-78, on Thursday night in Sharp Gym.
 
Senior Colter Lasher led HBU (7-8, 3-2 SLC) with 19 points on 8-of-16 shooting. His first bucket of the game, a layup 9:15 into the first half, gave him 1,000 points for his career. Lasher is the first Husky to join the 1,000-point club since Andrew Gonzalez did it during the 2010-11 season.
 
Junior Josh Ibarra posted his second-consecutive double-double, and third of the season, with 15 points and 10 rebounds. The big man was 7-of-10 from the floor and scored all of his points in the second half after spending most of the first half on the bench with a pair of early fouls. Reveal Chukwujekwu also finished the night with 10 rebounds and added 12 points for his own double-double. Sophomore Asa Cantwell matched his season-best with 12 points, connecting on 4-of-7 from three-point range.
 
The Bears (4-13, 3-1 SLC) were led by junior Jordan Howard who finished with a game-high 27 points, knocking down 7-of-13 shooting, including 5-of-8 from deep. Mathieu Kamba and Derreck Brooks both added 20 for UCA.
 
UCA got out to an early 4-3 lead and used an 8-0 run to push its' lead to nine after a Tanner Scmit jumper just over seven minutes into the first stanza. That lead would grow to 11 aver a Howard layup made it 16-5 but the Huskies responded with a run of their own, capped by an Alex Fountain layup, brought the HBU deficit to 19-15 with 8:52 on the clock. Central Arkansas responded with a 22-5 run to take a 21 point advantage, 41-20, with just 2:38 remaining in the half. After a Chukwujekwu jumper cut things back down to 41-27, a UCA bucket and subsequent three at the buzzer by Kamba sent the Huskies to the locked room trailing 46-27.
 
HBU chipped away at the Central Arkansas lead with a Lasher jumper at the 10:29 mark pulling the Huskies within 11, 62-51. With 5:58 left, Ibarra knocked down a jumper in the paint to make it 69-60 but HBU couldn't manage to get it any closer the rest of the way.
 
Both teams finished the night with 34 rebounds, with HBU pulling down 18 on the offensive end. The Bears shot 51.6 percent (32-of-62) from the floor and 55.6 percent (10-of-18) from range. HBU went just 10-of-34 (29.4 percent) in the first half but rebounded to hit 18-33 (54.5 percent) in the second period to finish the game at 41.8 percent (28-67).
 
The Huskies embark on the three-game road swing beginning Saturday in San Antonio, Texas with a 3:00 p.m. tip-off against Incarnate Word.