The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
La Salle
Men's Basketball Falls To LaSalle, 63-58
11/20/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
ST. THOMAS, Virgin Islands - With UAB trailing 61-58 Mo Finley fired a three-point shot that fell short with eight seconds left, allowing La Salle to hold on and take a 63-58 victory over the Blazers in final round play at the Paradise Jam.
Julian Blanks grabbed the rebound off Finley's miss and the Blazers were forced to foul Dwayne Jones, who sunk both free throws.
UAB (1-2) ends the tournament with a fourth place finish and La Salle (2-1) captured third place.
Junior guard Eric Bush, who is in his debut season with the Blazers, was named to the All-Tournament Team. Bush averaged 10.7 points, 7.7 rebounds, six assists and 38.3 minutes of play in three games at the tournament.
Except for a 5-4 lead at the 17:15 mark of the first half and a 10-10 tie at 14:33 to play in the first half, La Salle led the whole way.
"We got way too far down," said head coach Murry Bartow. "We fought hard to come back. I thought we had a lot of opportunities there in the last five to six minutes, but we just didn't make the shots that we had. We still think we have a good basketball team.'
The Explorers shot 48.4 percent from the field and 50 percent from three-point range in the first half and led at the break 39-25.
Reggie Okosa and Rasual Butler each posted double-doubles for the Explorers, Okosa had 15 points and 10 rebounds and Butler posted 17 points and 16 boards.
Finley who posted his third straight game in double figures with 13 led the Blazers. Bush had 12 points, five assists and was a perfect 4-4 from the free throw line. P.J. Arnold added 11 points for UAB.
With the help of nine points from Bush, UAB used a 10-0 run, starting at the 4:59 mark of the second half to cut the lead to 59-56. Okosa then hit a layup and Will Campbell answered, tipping in a missed three-point attempt by Bush to put the score at 61-58 with 20 seconds to play.
UAB returns home to Bartow Arena Saturday to take on Richmond in the UAB Classic at 8:30 p.m.
