After a promising start to the conference stretch, ULM has fallen back to Earth with an eight-game skid to conclude the regular season. 

A missed 3-point shot by Tyreke Locure to send the game to overtime sealed the Warhawks’ (11-20; 7-11) fate for the regular season on Friday as they fell to the Arkansas State Red Wolves (12-19; 4-14) 64-61. 

Even with the miss, Locure seemed to be the right Warhawk to take the shot. He finished the night with a team-best 24 points and recorded a career-high 33 points in a loss to Troy just two days earlier.

In games when the Warhawks scored 61 or fewer points this season, they are 2-13.

“We’ve been a struggle offensively a lot this year, and tonight was no different,” ULM head coach Keith Richard said.

ULM made just over 36% of its shots, marking the fifth-worst shooting night in a Sun Belt game this season.

Locure recorded eight of his 24 points at the foul line while he shot 6 for 21 from the field. Guard Jamari Blackmon, who recorded double digits for most of ULM’s conference games, scored just six points on 2 of 8 shooting.

“The story is out on how to guard us, and it’s to pay a lot of attention to Jamari and Tyreke—double them if you have to—and really try to let you see if the other guys can score or not,” Richard said.

ULM led after the first 20 minutes. The Warhawks exited halftime with a 29-26 lead that grew to a seven-point lead in under three minutes. But after a five-minute scoring drought, the Red Wolves possessed the lead for the first time in the second half.

“You can’t hold other teams scoreless,” Richard said. “You got to be able to put some scoring together along with your hard, gritty play on defense. These scoring droughts are just disastrous for us.”

Arkansas State led by as much as seven points inside the final two minutes. Lucky Red Wolf misses enabled ULM to have one last shot at the end to force overtime, but a highly-contested 3-pointer missed the rim.

The Warhawks get a bye in the Sun Belt Conference Championship Tournament. They are the 10-seed and will face off against seventh-seeded Georgia Southern on Thursday. The winner will advance to face the second-seeded UL-Lafayette on Saturday.