Jan. 23, 2012

Arlington, Texas - The Mavericks practiced for the first time in College Park Center on Monday afternoon, as the transition into the 7,000-seat on-campus arena begins.

"It's pretty unbelievable," UT Arlington coach Scott Cross said. "It's almost overwhelming how beautiful the facility is. If I sat down and took as much time as necessary to draw up a perfect facility, I couldn't have done a better job than what they've done building this place. I couldn't imagine anything being more perfect than this place right here. It's pretty amazing."

The Mavericks begin the week ranked No. 19 in the collegeinsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll, up from No. 25 last week. UTA is also up to No. 88 in the USA Today Sagarin rankings after being No. 99 last week.

Monday's 90-minute workout was the first of several practices for the Mavericks leading up to the CPC opener Feb. 1 against UTSA. UTA has road games at Houston Baptist (Tuesday) and Texas State (Saturday) in the meantime.

"We'll get to practice tomorrow morning in here and we'll get back in Wednesday to shoot a little bit, then we'll get a couple practices next week before we play UTSA in here," Cross said. "Hopefully that will be enough for the guys. We have good shooters and they can adjust quick enough. It's awesome."