The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
-1410, 74 CUSA
UTSA
-1013, 55 CUSA
UAB Falls 82-67 on the Road to UTSA
2/4/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Box Score (PDF)
SAN ANTONIO, Texas - A difficult road swing to Texas ended with Saturday’s 82-67 Conference USA loss to UTSA at the Convocation Center in San Antonio.
Couple Saturday’s loss with a Thursday night setback at UTEP and the Blazers (14-10 overall, 7-4 C-USA) lost back-to-back games for the first time this season. UAB head coach Robert Ehsan quickly recapped his team’s problems on Saturday during his postgame radio appearance.
“Very frustrating from my standpoint,” said Ehsan, whose team was outrebounded, 37-23. “I thought they out-competed us. They really killed us on the backboard. Our lack of box outs was very apparent and, defensively, we were not very good. They’re 8-1 in this building. They’ve played very good basketball here. We did not – in any shape or form – match their intensity or their competitiveness.”
One bright spot for UAB, though, was junior forward Chris Cokley becoming the 21st member of the program’s 1,000 point club. Cokley entered the game six points shy of the 1,000-point mark and he finished with 11 points on Saturday.
Other than that, though, it was hard to find too much for the Blazers to be happy about after dropping out of a second place tie with Louisiana Tech and Old Dominion. The Blazers did get off to a good start offensively with Hakeem Baxter hitting a pair of 3-pointers early in the game. But, it was also apparent early that the Blazers were having trouble slowing down the Roadrunners offense.
UTSA (10-13 overall, 5-5 C-USA) eventually opened up a close first half by scoring 11 consecutive points in the final minutes before intermission. Jeff Beverly, who had 20 first half points and a career best 32 points overall, did much of the damage. Denzell Watts banked in a 3-pointer in the closing seconds to end the 11-0 run and trim the deficit to 44-33.
UAB took a sizeable chunk out of the deficit early in the half and trailed just 52-46 on a 3-pointer by William Lee with 14:06 left in the game. However, UTSA countered with a 10-3 run to regain the momentum.
The Blazers never got within eight points after that, largely because they had trouble stopping the UTSA offense. Free throws were also a critical area on Saturday. UAB shot 50 percent from the line in each half and were 14-of-28 overall. UTSA, on the other hand, made its first 16 free throws before finishing 21-of-25 from the line.
UAB senior swingman Dirk Williams was able to get untracked offensively on Saturday. He had a team-high 16 points, hitting 5-of-9 overall from the field, including 4-of-6 on 3-pointers, and 2-of-4 from the free throw line.
“He played with some more confidence,” Ehsan said. “I thought he’s been shooting the ball better as of late. It was good to see him hit a couple, hopefully that will continue. We’re going to need that from him.”
The Blazers return home to Bartow Arena for games against Charlotte on Thursday and Old Dominion on Saturday. Ehsan was asked about his team’s mindset as they return home.
“(We can’t) put too much emphasis on a one-weekend road trip because it’s very difficult to win (on the road) in this league,” Ehsan said. “We’ve seen that over the last couple of years. We have to definitely improve a couple of things defensively and the rebounding. I think those are two things that stood out hugely.”
