UTA 58, Georgia State 63
Quick post tonight…long week and I’m kinda sleepy. Don’t have a lot of time to dig into the stats tonight.
Coach Hunter does a great job for the Panthers (9-4). They have quickness, a ton of height, they shoot the three very well, have an outstanding coach (Coach Hunter has made the Panthers an elite mid-major program–how many 20+ win seasons have they had the last few years?) play a good zone defense and already have wins over Georgia and Alabama.
Just a few quick observations from Sunday afternoon’s basketball game between UT-Arlington (3-1) vs. UC Davis (1-4):
The UT Arlington Mavericks (2-1) looked like they were going to put the game out of reach early against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (3-1) Friday night at College Park Center, driving to the paint, hitting outside shots and crashing the boards. They ran the fast break to perfection. UTA lead by 9 at halftime 39-30 in what appeared to be 10-15 point victory in the making. UTA’s junior point guard Brian Warren was hot from outside and had 19 in the first half (26 on the night). Continue reading
UTA, who looked impressive Tuesday night against a NAIA opponent, used a hot-shooting second half and a strong team defensive effort to defeat mid-major power University of Northern Iowa in front of a vocal College Park Center Homecoming Night crowd of 3,789.
An elite mid-major basketball program in recent years, Northern Iowa has been in the NCAA Tournament seven times in the last 15 years, and defeated top seed Kansas in 2010. UNI–who defeated UTA in Cedar Falls in the first game of a good home-and-home series–has had back-to-back seasons under. 500 and came to Arlington Saturday night with a young, talented, tall team featuring superstar guard A.J. Green, a four-star recruit ranked in ESPN’s top 100. Continue reading
The much awaited UT Arlington coaching debut of former Tennessee and Texas Tech assistant coach Chris Ogden went very well Tuesday night at College Park Center in UT Arlington’s season opener.
As I’ve written many times before, season openers can be ugly turnover-plagued contests but this game was surprisingly December-like. The ongoing storyline for UTA this season will be the fact that only one current Maverick saw major minutes in the rotation last season. Continue reading
UTA 58, Northern Iowa 62
Just a quick late-night post…In a game that was being billed by many basketball fans as one of the best matchups around the country tonight, the Mavs’ mediocre shooting continued and UTA saw a 9-point lead with about 9 minutes left disappear to lose their second game of the season. The game wasn’t an offensive masterpiece for either team, but it was game of runs by each team, and UTA came up just a little short tonight. Northern Iowa (7-2 with quality wins over UNLV, SMU) was ranked 26 in RPI going into the game, UTA was in the mid-30’s. UTA held UNI scoreless for about two minutes in the closing minutes of the game, but a furious Maverick rally of their own wasn’t quite enough to overcome a late 7-point UNI lead. Continue reading
We won 65-60. Go Mavs
UT Arlington (6-1) 69, Rice (2-5) 49
Since my last post a couple of games ago (although I had a lengthy and somewhat interesting analysis of the BYU win that my browser and/or blog software didn’t publish correctly), the Mavs went to Provo and beat a good-but-not-great BYU team by double-digits, lost by one point to a (in my opinion, anyway) sweet-sixteen Alabama team, defeated two teams in New York on the road and defeated Div. III UT-Dallas at home in a game without Kevin Hervey and Link Kabadyundi.
The Rice Owls entered tonight’s game with an RPI around 280 and a record of 2-4 with wins over Northwestern State and the University of St. Thomas, a NAIA school in Houston. The Owls jumped out to an 8-0 lead on a couple of quick threes but UTA went on a run and built a 15-8 lead and never looked back. Continue reading
