The Mavs came out flat, dug a huge hole and played a good final 10:00 but it wasn’t quite enough to win.

UTA 62, Arkansas-Little Rock 68

Hot UALR (17-2, 7-1) 3-point shooting and early UTA (14-4, 5-2) turnovers and missed shots resulted in a 18-0 deficit just 5 minutes in, with UALR stretching lead to 28 at halftime 42-14. Think of some of the blowouts the Mavs have been on the winning of end this season, it was like that but against us. It was that bad. At least for the first 30:00 or so.

At that point I left the game on a quest to find an item we needed at the grocery store and obtain a banana split from my favorite ice cream shop on the way home. But listening to the last few minutes on the radio was kinda fun–we got to within 4 in last minute or two but it quite simply wasn’t enough. You simply can’t be down 28 at any point in a game and expect to win.

So…what’s the greater meaning of this game? Glass half empty, or half full? Neither. It’s a glass, and there’s water in it.

You can look at it several ways:

We’ve lost 2 of 3. Or, it’s only our 4th loss in 18 games. Or it’s a team that can score points in a hurry and therefore is never really out of a game. Or it’s hard to win when shooting 29% FG and allowing 47% FG for the game. The final deficit was 6, but that’s a little deceiving how bad the game was for the first 30:00.

So…1-1 vs. Arkansas St. and UALR…not a bad weekend against two good teams.

The next 5 games feature a couple of easier opponents but are road games: at ULM, Louisiana, Georgia Southern, Georgia State and Texas State. I think we have a good chance of winning the first 3, the games in Atlanta and San Marcos are going to be awfully tough. Those two teams defend their home floors awfully well. But we’ll learn a lot more about this team and our opponents over the next two weeks. If we can go 3-2 or 4-1, we’re probably still within a game or two of first place. But a 2-3 or 1-4 stretch and we’re probably out of title contention at that point. Will be fun to see what happens.

Game stories:
UTA Athletics
Star-Telegram
UALR Athletics