Men's Basketball
Anthony Vereen led the Mavs on Friday with 21 points and eight rebounds. |
MAVERICKS LOOK TO REBOUND AGAINST MONTANA
Dec. 6, 2008
MISSOULA, Mt. - A LOOK AT THE MAVERICKS UT Arlington comes into tonight's game 4-2 after a 67-65 loss to Denver last night in their first game of the Grizzly Basketball Classic...the loss dropped the Mavericks to 4-2 and snapped their short 2-game winning streak...the loss also puts the Mavs record at 5-4 in their last 9 games away from home (dating back to the 2007-08 season)...tonight's game is the finale of the Grizzly Basketball Classic.
COVERAGE Tonight's game can be seen live on bigskytv.org and listened to at grizcountry1015.com.
UTA - MONTANA SERIES Tonight's game is just the 4th all-time meeting between UTA and Montana...Montana leads the all-time series 3-0 which includes a 2-0 mark in games played in Missoula...the last time the teams played was on 11/21/97 in Missoula - an 89-60 Montana victory...the teams also played in Missoula on 11/30/91 (71-68 UM win) and on 12/28/96 in Arlington (69-48 UTA win)...this is UTA's 16th all-time game against a school from the Big Sky Conference...the Mavs are 6-9 against those teams after losing at Eastern Washington last month (73-70).
MAVERICKS HEAD COACH Scott Cross Scott Cross is in his 3rd season as the head coach at UT Arlington...he has a career coaching record of 38-31 (.551)...Cross led the Mavericks to their first-ever NCAA Tournament in 2008 after winning the Southland Conference Tournament...in 2008 he led his team to a school-record 21 victories and his team completed a school record 17-game home winning streak (3 games in `07 and the first 14 of `08)...a 1998 graduate of UT Arlington, Cross was a 2-time Academic All-American at his alma mater where he lettered 3 times from 1995-98.
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD Tonight's game is the 3rd of 10 consecutive games away from home for the Mavericks...UTA will play 9 road games and one neutral site game during this stretch which includes games in Missoula, Mt., Huntington, Wv., Waco, Tx. and Orem, Ut. to name a few...their next home game is Jan. 14 vs. Lamar...this is the longest such stretch in program history which is in its 50th season...last year the Mavs were 7-9 away from Texas Hall (4-8 on the road and 3-1 in neutral games) and are 1-2 this season.
MORE ON THE "BIG TRIP" This 10-game stretch away from home will take the Mavericks on a journey that will span 4,428 miles...the trip to Missoula is the longest in this span at 1,319 miles while the shortest is 33 miles to Denton, Texas to play North Texas...UTA also played at Eastern Washington last month which was a 1,476-mile trip.
TOUGH TIMES IN BIG SKY COUNTRY NOT KIND TO THE MAVS Both of the Mavericks losses this season have come in Big Sky country...last night's 67-65 loss to Denver followed a 3-point loss at Eastern Washington 2 weeks ago tonight...these are the closest 2 games of the year.
LAST GAME - DENVER 67, UTA 65 A late UT Arlington rally fell short and the Mavericks lost to Denver 67-65 at the Grizzly Basketball Classic in Missoula, Mont. The Mavericks battled back from a 13-point second half deficit to tie the game at 65 on a pair of Anthony Vereen free throws with 12 seconds remaining. After a timeout by Denver, the Pioneers Kyle Lewis made a 12-foot jumper with 1.9 seconds to play to give the Pioneers the win.
QUOTING HEAD COACH Scott Cross "I'm proud of our guys that they continued to compete and come back after we got down in the second half. "Denver is a tough team to come back against because of their style of play but we continued to play and had a chance at the end to come away with a victory."
A NUMBER OF FIRSTS There were a number of "firsts" for the Mavs last night in their loss to Denver...it was the first game they had fewer assists than their opponents, it was the first time they have lost when they have had fewer turnovers (now 3-1), the first time they have scored less than 70 points and the first game they have lost when allowing fewer 70 points.
SHARP SHOOTING VEREEN Anthony Vereen is one of just 2 Southland Conference players to rank in the top 10 in FG percentage (.560, 5th) and FT percentage (.760, 9th)...Lamar's Tristan Worrell is the other at .541 FG% (7th) and .833 FT% (3rd).
TEAM NOTES UTA's 65 points in last night's loss was a season-low...last year the Mavs were 5-8 when scoring fewer than 70 points...the 65 points came after averaging 93.5 points in their 2 previous games...UTA is still averaging 80.0 points per game on the season which is 4th in the Southland Conference...the Mavs scoring margin of +10.7 is 3rd in the conference and they are one of only 3 teams to have a scoring margin of +10 or more.
The Mavs tied a season-low with just 5 3-pt. field goals last night against Denver...that comes after making 21 in their 2 previous games...UTA had also averaged 25 3's in the 4 previous games before attempting a season-low 13 last night (their previous low was 19 vs. Hardin Simmons)...that was just the 2nd game all season in which they attempted fewer than 20 3-pointers...the Mavs 38.5% night from long range was the 2nd-highest of the season and they have gone 16-41 (39.1%) in the last 2 games.
After starting the season shooting less than 70% from the line in the first 2 games, the Mavericks have shot 79.3% (69-87) in the last 4 games...they have made at least 17 FTs in each of those games and one the season have MADE almost as many free throws (104) as their opponents have ATTEMPTED (106)...last year the Mavs shot just 65.5 from the line but are shooting 74.3% this season which is the top mark in the Southland.
UTA posted season-highs of 18 offensive, 30 defensive and 48 total rebounds at Houston Baptist but last night registered season-lows of 6-20-26 in the same categories...before posting 26 last night, the Mavs had averaged 44.5 in the 2 previous games...the Mavericks have outrebounded 5 of their 6 opponents and have an +8.5 board margin in the last 4 games...in the first 2 games of the season that margin was a -4.0...UTA's overall rebounding margin of +4.3 is 4th in the Southland.
The Mavericks are now 2-1 when holding opponents to less than 70 points...last year the team was 17-1 when doing so...last night's loss broke a 12-game winning streak when accomplishing this.
The Mavericks shot 50.7% from the field vs. UT Tyler marking the 2nd time this season they have shot better than 50%...going back to last year, the Mavs have accomplished this in 10 of their last 14 games.
The first 6 games of the season have proven to be close or not close for the Mavericks...UTA defeated Hardin-Simmons by 20, UT Tyler by 32 and HBU by 14 but the other 3 games were decided by 3 points or less...last year UTA was 2-2 in games decided by 3 points or less and 7-1 in games decided 20 or more.
BROWN NAMED ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH UT Arlington men's basketball head coach Scott Cross announced Tuesday that he has promoted assistant coach Reggie Brown to associate head coach of the program. "Reggie has been my `right hand man' for the last three years and he is deserving of this recognition," said Cross. Brown, who played for the Mavericks from 1993-97, is in his seventh season as an assistant coach at his alma mater.
NIFTY 50 The 2008-09 season is the 50th of Mavericks basketball...the first season was 1959-60 and the first coach was Tom Tinker and the team went 6-18 in that season.
FINAL FOUR COMING TO MAVERICKS HOMETOWN
The NCAA announced on Nov. 19 the 2014 Men's Final Four will be played at the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington...the stadium, which is about a mile from UTA's campus, opens in 2009 for the Cowboys and will also host the 2010 NBA All-Star game...the Dallas/Ft. Worth area last hosted the Final Four in 1986 at Reunion Arena.
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