PENSACOLA, Fla. – The UWF men's basketball team turned in a strong defensive effort but wasn't able to get the offense going, falling to West Alabama, 60-52, at the UWF Field House on Thursday.
 
UWF (7-8, 3-8 Gulf South) held the top team in the GSC to its second-lowest scoring game of the season but also shot just 29 percent.
 
The Argonauts trailed by nine at the half but fought back and pulled within a basket six times in the second period. After a Dell Matthews layup with 6:18 left trimmed the UWA lead to 47-44, the Tigers got a pair of layups and a fast break jumper to stretch the lead back to nine points with 4:30 remaining.
 
LaTrell Tate made four free throws to get UWF within five but were unable to make any more headway.
 
UWF got 16 points from Tate and 14 from Daniel Sofield. Jared DeHart added six points as the three players each made two 3-pointers.
 
"Our effort was great and much better than the past two games," UWF head coach Jeff Burkhamer said. "I thought we played hard and defended much better. Tonight, we just didn't play well enough offensively.
 
"At some point we'll put together a complete game and when we do that we are going to beat a good team. We're not far off but at some point we've got to do that."
 
UWA (13-2, 8-2) shot 41 percent and got game highs of 18 points and nine rebounds from CJ Melton.
 
The Argos will host Alabama Huntsville on Saturday at the UWF Field House at 4 p.m.