Coach Cross’ birthday was today apparently, and his team’s defense was cause for celebration.

After limiting Texas offensively the other night, the Mavs were contesting everything, blocking shots (4 each for Lagerson and Edwards), getting lots of rebounds (54-32 UTA) and moving the ball to create open looks for just about everyone on the team. Brandon Edwards had 16 including a couple of alley-oops at the start of the game, Dowell had 15 and McClanahan drove the lane with ease for 13 points. Again, hard to tell much about the team since DBU is a Division II team, but it seemed like the Mavs really focused on defense and made DBU work for every shot most of the night.

UTA had a bit of a size advange, and Brandon Williams and Anthony Walker had some nice rebounds and put-backs, and watching them develop their game the next few years is going to be a lot of fun.

Next up: Weber (1-3 with a win over San Jose State, losses to BYU, Colorado State and Utah State) on Saturday.

The Shorthorn game story
Star-Telegram game story