Recap | Final Stats | Notes

South Alabama (8-8, 2-2 Sun Belt) 67 at UTA (11-6, 2-2 Sun Belt) 91
Saturday, January 6, 2018
College Park Center • Arlington, Texas

POSTGAME QUOTES

UTA Head Coach Scott Cross
"I felt it was a pretty good all-around game for us. It kind of reminded me of our team that we had two years ago that was relentless on the offensive boards, as well as the defensive boards. I feel like we won the game because of that grit and determination. It was great that Erick (Neal) was able to be honored as the all-time assist leader (after the game). It is an amazing accomplishment. He is a very unselfish basketball player. He is very, very deserving. It was an all-around great team performance. I felt like we really, really made up our mind that we were going to defend. (South Alabama) has a really good basketball team. Going into the game, they had the best defensive efficiency in the entire league. To be able to score 91 points on those guys was pretty awesome.

"You are starting to see glimpses of us getting a whole lot better in transition and playing with speed. There are still five or six unnecessary turnovers. You can live with a little bit of that, but we want to cut it down. The risk-reward was obviously worth it. They are a good halfcourt defensive basketball team and we were able to get some easy buckets. Our guys are doing a great job pitching the ball up the floor. It starts with Erick. When he moves that ball , the game changes."

Senior Guard Erick Neal
"I feel like we played pretty well today. We tried to use defense to get our offense going. I was a little banged up but I kind of fought through it. We played together tonight. That's what it was. We played hard. We played smart and we played good defense."