ARLINGTON – Despite a near career-high 26 points from Brian Warren, the UT Arlington men's basketball team (2-1) let a double-figure lead slip away due to a poor 2nd-half performance on Friday night against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (3-1), resulting in a 73-67 setback at the College Park Center.
 
UTA led by as much as 12 in the 1st half, and took a 39-30 lead into the halftime break, but the Mavericks shot just 24 percent (7-29) from the floor in the 2nd half while allowing the Islanders to connect at a 55-percent clip (16-29) en route to their first loss of the young season.
 
Warren led all scorers and finished one shy of matching his career high with the 26-point performance on 10-14 shooting and 4-7 from the 3-point line. David Azore also finished in double figures for the Mavs with 10, while DJ Bryant came off the bench to tally a career-high nine.
 
The Mavericks shot 50 percent from the floor in the opening stanza (16-32) while holding the Islanders to just 1-7 (14.3 percent) from the 3-point line. However, that script was flipped in the 2nd half as A&M-Corpus Christi connected on half of its eight 3-point attempts and the Mavs made just 1-13 (7.7 percent).
 
UTA suffered a big early blow when freshman Patrick Mwamba went down with an injury early in the game. The 6-5 lengthy forward had converted a dunk just minutes before, and did not return. He entered the contest averaging 9.5 points, 3 rebounds and 2.5 steals per game – with the theft average ranking 2nd in the Sun Belt Conference.
 
A&M-Corpus Christi chipped away late in the 1st half to get the double-figure deficit down to single digits by the intermission, and then commenced the 2nd half on a quick 9-0 spurt to knot the contest at 39-39 just more than two minutes into the period. From there – behind a team-high 21 points from Myles Smith and 18 more from Tony Lewis – the Islanders kept the Mavs at bay.
 
HEAD COACH CHRIS OGDEN
"When we weren't able to make shots in the 2nd half, we also weren't able to make the tough, grinding plays to make up for that. We had some shots – they just didn't go in. To have a double-figure lead late in the 1st half and a nine-point lead at halftime – we need to learn from that; we have to stretch that lead. In the last four minutes, they made the plays and we didn't. We've got to make some adjustments quickly and get back after it on Sunday again."
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
Edric Dennis tallied eight points and grabbed a game-high-tying seven rebounds for UTA – a total matched by Radshad Davis …UTA finished the game just 6-32 (18.8 percent) from 3-point range … A&M-CC outscored UTA in the paint, 38-22.
 
THIS AND THAT
NBA superstar Kevin Durant attended the game and sat next to the UTA bench. Durant played at Texas when Ogden was an assistant with the Longhorns … the game started with nearly eight uninterrupted minutes of action; the first media timeout occurred at the 12:09 mark … attendance was announced as 1,569.
 
HARDWOOD SHOWCASE
The game was part of a multiple-team event (MTE) called the Hardwood Showcase, and features UTA, Indiana, Arkansas, Montana State, UC Davis and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Each team will play – or already has played – four others from the group of six this month. Next week, UTA will head to Bloomington to face the Hoosiers before traveling to Fayetteville to take on the Razorbacks.
 
In addition to the UTA games at the CPC Friday and Sunday, UC Davis and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi will play each other at the arena on Saturday at 2 p.m. Admission is free.
 
NEXT UP
UTA will look to rebound quickly when the Mavs conclude a season-opening four-game homestand on Sunday with the aforementioned 12 p.m. tipoff against UC Davis.