The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
Tulane
UAB Tops Tulane, 81-73
2/18/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 18, 2012
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - UAB senior forward Cameron Moore scored 25 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as UAB defeated Tulane 81-73 Saturday night.
UAB (12-14, 7-6 Conference USA) has now won five of its last six games and seven of its last 10 contests.
"We got off to a great start, and we kind of faded in the second half," UAB head coach Mike Davis said. "We went up by 17 points, and then we started just going through the motions. We made some plays, but unfortunately we did not handle Tulane's press well at all. This was a really good win for us though."
Moore recorded his fifth double-double in his last six games. It was his 12th double-double of the season and 26th of his career.
After leading 30-27 at halftime, the Blazers (12-14, 7-6 Conference USA) scored the first 14 points of the second half to go up 44-27 with 15:39 remaining.
The Green Wave (15-11, 3-9), however, refused to fold. With Pleasant Grove, Ala. native Ricky Tarrant scoring 29 of his 33 points in the second half, they came back to trail just 73-70 after Jay Hook's 3-pointer with 39 seconds remaining.
Preston Purifoy dunked to give UAB a five-point lead, and after Jordan Callahan missed a 3-pointer for Tulane, Tarrant fouled Moore, who made both free throws for a 77-70 lead with 17 seconds to play.
"We have no time to slack off at all," Davis said. "This is desperation time for us, and everybody needs to be playing hard for 40 minutes. We did a better job tonight of making some shots. Preston (Purifoy) hit 5 3-pointers tonight, and K.C. (Whitaker) gave us some production off of the bench."
Purifoy finished with 19 points and Jordan Swing 16 for the Blazers.
Josh Davis added 15 points and 11 rebounds for Tulane. Tarrant's 33 points tied a season best for the freshman guard.
The Blazers will be off this week and won't play again until Saturday when they travel to take on East Carolina. The contest will tip at 4 p.m. CT (5 p.m. ET)
