MONTICELLO, Ark. — The Ouachita men's basketball team capped the regular season Saturday with a blowout road victory over Arkansas-Monticello inside Steelman Fieldhouse.
Christian Parks led the Tigers with career-highs of 23 points and 12 rebounds to deliver his fourth double-double of his junior campaign. Parks continued his dominant stretch in the paint and finished 11-for-13 from the floor. Ouachita's rim protector muscled through contact on the block and cleaned up second-chance opportunities to anchor the Tigers on both ends of the floor.
Both teams matched baskets for the first 15 minutes of action, until the Tigers pounced to close the first half on a 12-2 scoring run. Ouachita's senior duo got active as PJ Neal bruised through the lane to score through contact, then dished out an alley-oop for Devon Hancock to finish at the rim, plus the foul. The Tigers continued to press the issue as Hancock swiped a steal to terminate a Weevils possession, then buried a transition three off a feed from Neal to turn a four-point deficit late in the first half into a comfortable 37-29 halftime lead.
Parks crashed the boards to score a putback layup, then converted a feed inside from sophomore Crew Flowers to re-establish control. After the Weevils cut the deficit to just one point, the Tigers raced out to a 9-0 scoring run, capped by a transition three from Hancock off an assist from junior Gavin Snyder to extend the lead to 54-44.
Ouachita's senior backcourt duo matched 15 points each. Neal filled up the statsheet with 10 rebounds, nine assists, while he snatched three steals to flirt with a near triple-double in a complete performance on both ends of the floor.
Ouachita was held to just three made shots from deep, but converted 60% of its shots from inside the arc to run away from UAM. The Tigers held the Weevils to just 38% shooting from the floor and 29% from 3-point land.
With the regular season complete, Ouachita (22-6, 18-4 GAC) turns its attention to the Great American Conference Tournament. The Tigers enter as the No. 2 seed and are scheduled to face the No. 7-seeded Southwestern Oklahoma State (11-17, 8-14 GAC) at noon on Thursday, March 5, in Fort Smith.
