NEW ORLEANS – Marvin Jean-Pierre hit 10-of-13 shots from the field and matched his career high with 23 points while ULM's defense limited Arkansas State to its third-lowest point total of the season, as the Warhawks cruised to a 76-54 victory in the first round of the Sun Belt Championship Wednesday night (March 7).
 
Last Saturday, A-State completed a regular-season sweep over ULM, 83-79, in Monroe, Louisiana. The Red Wolves shot 61 percent (17-of-28) from the field, including 8-of-12 3-pointers (67 percent), while building an 18-point halftime lead at 50-32.
 
ULM (16-14) scored the first five points of the game and built an 16-8 lead on Michael Ertel's 3-pointer from the left baseline with 11:34 left in the first half. A-State (11-21) answered with a 6-0 spurt to cut its deficit to 16-14 on two free throws from Grantham Gillard with 9:45 remaining. A deep 3-pointer from the left wing by Jordon Harris sparked a 14-5 run and a layup by Sam Alabakis with :30 to play in the first half sent the Warhawks to the locker room with a 14-point lead at 39-25.
 
Travis Munnings hit 6-of-7 field-goal attempts in the first 20 minutes and scored 13 points for ULM. The Warhawks also got 10 first-half points from Ertel.
 
ULM shot 59 percent (17-of-29) from the floor in the first half while limiting A-State to 32-percent field-goal shooting (10-of-31), including only 1-of-10 from 3-point range.
 
The Warhawks broke the game open by outscoring the Red Wolves, 22-4, over a 9:58 stretch in the second half. Jean-Pierre's dunk gave ULM its largest lead at 63-33 with 8:06 left in the second half. Jean-Pierre scored 11 consecutive for the Warhawks during a 3:14 span in the second half.
 
"Obviously, we're happy to be moving on to the next round," ULM head coach Keith Richard said. "Arkansas State had been a tough match-up for us during the conference season. We lost to them twice and had a really hard time guarding them in two of the four halves played this season. Tonight, we played tremendous defense. We played as good of defense as we could possibly play, which helped us on offense. We went from giving up 50 points in the first half on Saturday to 54 for the game. That's pretty good defense there, and we did it against a team that's tough for us to guard. To me, that was the story of the game. We did some good things on offense, but to me, the defense was the difference.
 
"We moved out our defense a little bit from last Saturday, and we emphasized closing out a step further than we did Saturday to the 3-point line. As a result, we knew they were going to put the ball on the ground. This was the saga we had playing them two other times this season. Sam Alabakis did a tremendous job of altering shots down there, without fouling. That was just as big a key as running them off the 3-point line. Sam didn't foul; he just showed a wall. It wasn't about him blocking shots necessarily, but it was about altering them and then securing the rebound after the shot. It all went hand in hand, and Sam played a big part in our defensive effort.
 
"We used the same (defensive) plan with some minor adjustments we made Saturday at halftime, and it fueled us. There was some ball-screen stuff we changed at the half in Monroe and we did it again tonight, and it worked really well. We also pushed out our pick-up point on defense. We also paid attention to make sure that (Tristin) Walley and (Grantham) Gillard didn't go off on us with the 3s like they did the other night. That carry-over from the second half of Saturday's game was big for us tonight."
 
Jean-Pierre posted 16 second-half points in 13 minutes, hitting all seven of his field-goal attempts including two 3s. ULM also got 13 points from Munnings (all coming in the first half) and 12 from Ertel.
 
For the game, the Warhawks shot 50 percent (31-of-62) from the floor, including 37 percent (7-of-19) from behind the 3-point arc. With its shooting performance, ULM improved to 9-1 on the season when hitting 50 percent of better from the field.
 
Ty Cockfield connected on 6-of-15 field-goal attempts and became the only A-State player to score in double figures, finishing with 18 points.
 
The Warhawks will face No. 3 seed Georgia Southern (20-11, 11-7) in the quarterfinals of the Sun Belt Championship on Friday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m. in Lakefront Arena.
 
ULM won the only regular-season meeting between the two teams, as Travis Munnings and Sam McDaniel combined for 49 points in a 66-64 overtime victory at Georgia Southern on Feb. 8. McDaniel's 3-pointer from the left wing with 11 seconds left in overtime gave ULM the lead for good at 65-64. There were 10 ties and 13 lead changes in the game, and the largest lead for either team was only five points.
 
Munnings recorded a double-double against the Eagles, finishing with a game-high 26 points to go along with a career-best 20 rebounds, while McDaniel fell one rebound short of a double-double, tallying 23 points and nine boards.