Blazers Pounce on the Panthers

Saturday, January 6

Miami, Fla.

6:00 PM

UAB

-115, 21 CUSA

FIU

-79, 12 CUSA

UAB

FIU

Blazers Pounce on the Panthers

1/6/2018 8:53:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score

MIAMI - The UAB men's basketball played 80 minutes in South Florida the past three days. The Blazers never trailed.

Florida troubles? Not this time.

UAB ended a profitable business trip to Florida with a convincing 75-64 Conference USA victory over Florida International University on Saturday night at the Ocean Bank Convocation Center.
Mix that with Thursday night's 31-point win at FAU and you get a pleased UAB head coach Robert Ehsan.

"I hope many more road trips are kind of like this," Ehsan said. "It's kind of a rarity to play consistently as well as we did for two games down here. I think as team we played two 40-minute games. Maybe in the last 8-10 minutes (Saturday night), we got a little sloppy but, I think, other than that, we were really good."

UAB (11-5 overall, 2-1 C-USA) not only won convincingly on Saturday night but the Blazers led by double digits most of the way, against a team that took Middle Tennessee into overtime on Thursday night.

The domination began about the same time the ball was tipped off.

The dominating start was thorough and swift. It began with the teams trading buckets. UAB then ripped off 16 consecutive points over the next three minutes. All but a 3-pointer by Nate Darling came inside the paint. A big part of the early success was a great defensive effort by the Blazers.

"I think switching defenses in the beginning, just threw them off rhythm," Ehsan said. "That's what we wanted to do, not let them get comfortable. Offensively, we made some shots and we got the ball inside."

FIU (7-9 overall, 1-2 C-USA) settled in after the poor start and began slowly chipping away at a lead that was 18-2 less than eight minutes into the game. With just over seven minutes left in the half, FIU used a 5-0 run to trim the deficit to 28-21. After a UAB timeout, Deion Lavender took a nice pass from Lewis Sullivan and got the Blazers back on track with a layup.

The lead eventually grew back to 40-23 with 2:01 remaining after Darling beat the shot clock with a contested 17-foot jumper. William Lee made a 10-footer, after Zack Bryant's pass, with 22 seconds left in the half to give UAB the 42-23 lead. FIU managed to hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to trim the deficit to 42-26.

Bryant and Darling led the way in the first half with nine points each and Cokley had eight points. UAB outrebounded FIU, 24-12 overall, and 9-3 on offensive rebounds. UAB had 11 second chance points and FIU had none.

The second half began with a turnaround 8-footer by Darling, a 3-pointer by Nick Norton and a fastbreak follow dunk by Cokley. After a FIU bucket, the lead peaked at 52-28 on a 3-pointer by Bryant.

Again, FIU began chipping away at the lead, but UAB did enough down the stretch to keep it at double digits. Part of the reason was UAB did a good job on the boards against an outstanding rebounding team. UAB outrebounded FIU, 41-29, overall with both teams grabbing 10 offensive rebounds. UAB won the second chance points category, 13-5.

"I was really happy with the boards," Ehsan said. "I thought they got a couple of those offensive rebounds late. We probably really held them to seven offensive rebounds, which I thought was good. We were boxing out. That's been a huge emphasis, because it's been, historically, a weakness for us."

Cokley and Bryant both finished off very productive trips to Florida. Cokley had 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field and 4-of-5 on free throws. He also added nine rebounds and two assists. Bryant had 16 points, hitting 5-of-7 overall from the field, to go along with three rebounds and three assists.

Darling was the only other double digit scorer with 13 points. Norton had eight points, five assists and no turnovers against one of the top pressure defenses in the conference. The Blazers outscored FIU, 42-18, in the paint.

The Blazers carry a great deal of confidence home to begin preparations for next week's Bartow Arena games against Southern Miss and Louisiana Tech.

"The biggest thing is we're just playing (more solid) for longer stretches," Ehsan said. "Early in the season, we had flashes of really good basketball and then we'd have a flash where we really were just not very good. Now, we're getting better, we're more consistent, we're playing more steady, we're playing our game."

For more information on UAB men's basketball, follow the Blazers on Twitter (@UAB_MBB), Instagram (@UAB_MBB) and Snapchat (@UAB_MBB).