Dec. 3, 2015

Final Stats | Photo Gallery

By Cassie Logan | @c4ssielogan

ARLINGTON, Texas - The UT Arlington men's basketball team had the hot hand with five players scoring in double figures in its 90-67 victory over rival North Texas on Thursday night at College Park Center.

The Mavericks (6-2) and the Mean Green (2-5) met for the first time since 2012-13 as UTA grasped its third win in a row in the 41-year all-time series. UTA improved to 6-2, its best start in five years, with its third straight win in Arlington.

Kevin Hervey recorded his fifth consecutive double-double and is the only UTA player to score in double digits in all eight games this season. Hervey notched 20 points while dishing a career-high seven assists and 15 rebounds in 31 minutes.

UTA blazed through the first half on a 23-6 run behind a 60-percent shooting effort from the field. The Mavericks saw a pair of dunks from Jalen Jones and Jorge Bilbao, and back-to-back 3s from Hervey and Drew Charles initially led to a 14-5 lead.

UTA's ninth turnover of the half allowed the Mean Green to battle back 27-21 with just over seven minutes left. A pair of North Texas 3-pointers tied the game at 35, but an alley-oop from Hervey to Kaelon Wilson brought the Mavericks back to life as they regained the lead 39-35. Charles hit a 3 to put UTA up 52-42 at halftime.

The Mavs' offense was slow to start the second half as North Texas built momentum with a 7-2 run, but UTA got a standing ovation from the crowd after Jones put up a layup to stretch the lead to 18 points with 7:06 to play.

UNT fans already began filing out of College Park Center with less than five minutes on the clock while UTA continued on its offensive surge. Kennedy Eubanks downed a pair of 3-pointers to close out the night.

Key Stats
The Mavs shot 53.3 percent to the Mean Green's 44.8 from the field. UTA was 50 percent from 3-point range and out-rebounded North Texas 47 to 29. Forty of the Mavs' points were made in the paint, with 34 points produced from their bench.

Notable
The attendance of 6,107 was the third-highest in CPC history. ... Wilson matched a career-best 13 points and three steals. ... Eubanks passed his career-high with 11 points on the night. ... Erick Neal set a career-high nine assists. ... Jorge Bilbao surpassed his career-best with three assists and nine rebounds. ... Junior guard Mairega Clark made his first appearance of the season late in the second half. ... Cross, who celebrated his birthday, now needs just four more wins to become the program's all-time leader. Cross is in his 10th season and owns a career record of 159-130. ... UTA is now 4-1 when scoring at least 70 this season and 2-1 against opponents in Conference USA.

Up Next
The Mavericks take on another challenging opponent in UTEP at 8:05 p.m. Saturday in El Paso before returning for a four-game homestand at College Park Center.

Quotable
Scott Cross' opening statement:
"It's definitely the best birthday present right there. Offensively, that was probably one our better games next to Rice, especially in that second half. [Hervey and Neal] in that second half were both awesome. They played the way I needed them to play. Both these guys are facilitators. They're as good shooters as anybody, but they also make other guys better and they did that time and time again in the second half."

"Defensively, we dropped our intensity a little bit. We've got to be better. We've played so many games and sometimes it's hard to stay focused and locked in defensively. In the second half, it was better. We got stops after the first five minutes. It was definitely a good win. Our rebounding was tremendous and it's amazing how good a rebounding team this team is."

Kevin Hervey on the CPC crowd:
"It was amazing. The CPC was packed and playing at Texas, they had that many people and it gives you chills. It makes you want to play better. Personally, I like playing on big stages and there's a lot of people that like to show out."