It took overtime, but UTA beat Louisiana-Monroe who had beaten a very good Louisiana-Lafayette team just 5 days before.
Back when I was in college 20 years ago, I remember LA-Monroe (Northeast Louisiana was the name of the school back then if I recall) would always bring a very talented team to play the Mavs at Texas Hall. Some great games between to the two teams on the stage. Especially back then, UL-M was one of the marquee games of the year, with very successful Mike Vining as their coach. Mike won 401 games at the college level, all of which were in 24 seasons at UL-M). He was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame a few years ago and hope you’ll take a few minutes to read his bio on Hall’s website.
So fast-forwarding back to Thursday…even with leading scorer Reger Dowell out with an injury for this game, the Mavs still found plenty of offense for an 83-79 victory and only committed 11 turnovers. Another key stat: the Mavs outrebounded a very tall UL-M team 41-38, (UTA had 17 offensive rebounds, UL-M had 11). Lonnie McClanahan had 25 pts and Outler had 20. Maybe one of the most impressive games in the last few years by any Mav was Edwards’ 17 points, 10 rebounds, 5 blocks. How many guys at the college level his size can go a 5-of-8 from outside and block that many shots? Wow.
Great to get the first Sun Belt win, but will be a tough game in Lafayette (game preview from Louisiana-Lafayette athletics). The Ragin Cajuns are coached by another great coach, former longtime Sam Houston State University coach Bob Marlin, who recently picked up his 400th career win on Dec. 30.
UTA Athletics UL-M game story with nice video recap
Monroe News Star UL-M game story
UL-M Athletics UL-M game story
Lafayette Advertiser game preview
The Rusty Maverick 