Sophomore forward Steven McClellan made his season debut with the men’s basketball team in the 73-71 loss against the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs on Dec. 3 at the Fant-Ewing Coliseum after he planned to redshirt this season due to personal reasons.

“He said he couldn’t take watching anymore,” head coach Keith Richard said. “He said he wanted to help and contribute, which is good for him.”

In the game ULM (1-7) struggled to maintain control of the ball as they had 17 turnovers, seven more than La Tech (3-4).

Despite the turnovers, ULM played a close game, never falling behind more than 10 points in the game. At halftime La Tech led 32-29.

After the break, ULM got within one point with the score 36-35 and would keep the game close from that point on.

“We made some poor decisions late in the second half from our guard play that really hurt us,” Richard said.

He said, “It hurt us because we were having to keep scoring becuase we weren’t stopping them on the other end. And having as many turnover as we did, it’s hard to win like that.”

Sophomore guard Charles Winborne kept the Warhawks alive with big shots as he finished the night with 15 points and five assists.

Senior Fred Brown also played big for ULM as he sank big shots from down town to cut the lead late in the second half. Brown finished the night with a team-high 17 points and five rebounds.

Sophomore Marcellus Hansberry gave ULM its first lead of the second half with a 17-footer. 45-46, but it didn’t hold long as Tech quickly responded with two points of their own on the next two possessions to push the lead back up to three.

In the closing minutes the game got interesting as the fans came alive when Brown hit a big three with less than six minutes to play to tie game at 52.

The Warhawks and the Bulldogs exchanged baskets on respective ends to try control the lead. ULM took the lead with a free throw from Brown to make score 57-56, but Tech would come back with on its next possession to take the lead 59-57 with less than four minutes remaining.

Richard said, “We shot the ball better in the second half and we got the ball to the rim better. We did a lot of good things.”

La Tech guard Cordarius Johnson hit a three to push lead 63-57 with less than three minutes to play to keep the Warhawks out of range until Brown scored another three pointer to bring ULM back within four points with less than a minute to play in a score of 68-64.

Brown came back later with another three to put the team within three with less than 20 seconds remaining in the game clock. The score was 72-69.

“Our guards have to get better at making better decisions so we don’t have to score so much to keep up,” Richard said.

The game came down to the final seconds with Winborne on the line shooting two free throws and the team down by three. He made both shots to bring the game to one point at 72-71 with 4.4 seconds remaining.

La Tech went down and scored making the score 73-71 and leaving 3.6 seconds on the clock for ULM. On the inbounds pass, Hansberry dribbled past half-court and took a long-range shot to try for a game-winning shot. He missed to lose the game by two points.

ULM returns to action on Dec. 10 against Texas A&M to take on the Aggies at 7 p.m.