The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
Nebraska
UAB Takes Down Nebraska, 80-66
12/2/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 3, 2004
Box Score | Quotes | Box Score in PDF Format
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - Marques Lewis scored a career high 19 points to help lead UAB to a 80-66 victory over Nebraska on Thursday night. It moved the Blazers to 3-0 on the season.
"I'm happy to see our basketball team come in and play tremendous defense, establish their inside presence, get to the free-throw line and for the most part, I thought we rebounded pretty effectively early on," UAB head coach Mike Anderson said. "Marques [Lewis] had a breakout game. A career-high, and that's what you need. Each night it is going to be somebody different to step up. Demario [Eddins] played with a lot more energy and when he's playing like that, it has an effect on other guys. Our bench again came up huge. There's a lot of people coming in and doing different things."
Donell Taylor scored 15 points, Eddins 11 and Ronell Taylor 10 for UAB. Freshman guard Joe McCray came off the bench to score 24 points to lead Nebraska (2-1). Aleks Maric added 10 points and 15 rebounds.
Nebraska started four seniors, but the Cornhuskers' experience could not offset UAB's quickness and depth.The Blazers pressing defense forced Nebraska into a season-high 24 turnovers. Anderson used 13 players and nine of them scored.
UAB led by as many as 23 points in the second half before McCray scored the game's final 9 points to close the gap.
Lewis, a 6-foot-8 senior center, hit a turnaround jumper to give UAB the first points of the game. After Nebraska's Corey Simms drove for a basket to tie the score, Lewis powered inside for a 3-point play. That gave UAB a 5-2 lead and the Blazers never lost their lead.
UAB built a 39-31 halftime lead, with Lewis scoring 11 first-half points. That gave him a career-high by intermission, topping his previous best of 10 points.
The Blazers next travel to Huntington, W.Va., for the team's first road game of the season -- a 7 p.m. (ET)/6 p.m. (CT) battle Saturday night at future Conference USA foe Marshall.The game can be heard on the Blazer Sports Network, heard locally on WYDE, 101.1 FM.
