Nov. 14, 2011
Final Stats
Photo Gallery
By Art Garcia for UTAMavs.com
ARLINGTON, Tex. - The final season at Texas Hall began like the last five for UT Arlington.
With a bang.
The Mavericks extended their winning streak in season openers to school-record six with Monday night's 99-64 romp over East Texas Baptist.
Bo Ingram scored 19 and LaMarcus Reed III added 16 to lead four Mavs in double figures. Ten of the 11 that played logged at least 15 minutes in the balanced effort.
Maverick coach Scott Cross saw several teaching points, but was pleased with effort and hustle throughout the first game of 2011-12. Mavs sacrificed their bodies on defense, hit the floor and the boards, and attacked for the entire 40 minutes.
"That's the No. 1 thing I look at: the hustle points," Cross said. "You have to give East Texas Baptist credit. They played hard, too, but our guys were diving on the floor and grabbing loose balls. We did a very good job rebounding for the most part in the second half.
"There's tons of adjustments we can make defensively, tons we can get better at, but the one thing they have to have within ourselves, who we are, is playing hard."
UTA came out on fire. Ingram's 3-pointer gave the Mavericks their first double-figure lead (29-18) at the 12:46 mark of the first half. Their shooting percentage hovered over 70 percent for most of the half, with the lead peaking at 50-32.
Reed, last season's leading scorer, had a team-high 11 points and six rebounds at the break. Reserve forward Brandon Edwards brought crowd to their feet twice in the first half with a pair of monster slams.
Cross substituted freely, using a 10-man rotation in the first half alone. The Mavs shot 63 percent over the opening 20 minutes, including 54.5 percent on 6-of-11 3-pointers, and went into the locker room up 54-44 after a late surge by ETBU.
A pair of Tigers, Jeremy LaGarde and Jaron Joseph, did give UTA fits in the first half. The Mavs made it a point at halftime to ratchet up their defense on those two.
"We had to take it personal," Reed said. "We said we weren't going to let them score."
Ingram knocked down another 3-pointer to start the second half and the Mavs were rolling again. ETBU shot only 26.7 percent in the second half after shooting 48.5 in the first.
"In the second half we picked it up on defense," Ingram said.
The lead surpassed 20 less than five minutes into the half, as Cross continued to shuffle players in and out of the game.
"I feel we have 10 legit guys that all can make an impact," Cross said, adding that transfer Karol Gruszecki should be eligible for Saturday's home game against Louisiana Tech.
The Tigers (0-1) forced UTA to extend its defense. Nearly half of ETBU's shot were beyond the 3-point arc.
The Mavericks' point total tied for the third most in an opener in school history. As for the opening-game win streak, UTA won't extend at historic Texas Hall. The Mavs are expected to move into the state-of-the-art College Park Center in February.
