SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. – The UT Arlington men's basketball team's five-game road trip reaches its penultimate contest on Friday when the Mavericks (3-8) remain on the West Coast and return to action at Cal Poly (3-7) for a 9 p.m. Central tipoff inside the Mott Athletics Center.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
The game will streamed online at BigWest.TV. The Voice Of The Mavericks Josh Sours will have the call on the radio at KEXB 620 AM and via the TuneIn App and iHeartRadio. Furthermore, for updates and behind-the-scenes photos and videos all season, be sure to follow @UTA_MBB on Twitter and @UTA_Hoops on Instagram.
 
TWEETABLES – 5 Things To Know In 260 Characters Or Less
1) UTA will be looking to snap its first seven-game losing streak since 2002. The Mavericks haven't lost eight in a row in 30 years, dating back to the 1988-89 campaign when they dropped 10 straight.
2) The Mavericks rank 8th in the nation in 3-point percentage defense at .267. Cal Poly is 0-5 this year when having a worse 3-point percentage than its opponent. UTA held #8 Gonzaga to a season-low six 3-pointers on Tuesday.
3) Also in that contest with Gonzaga, UTA committed a season-low 11 turnovers, recorded a season-high 10 steals but shot a season-worst 26.8 percent from the floor (19-71); the Mavs attempted 12 more shots than the Bulldogs.
4) UTA has the following stat comparison in its three wins and eight losses (wins average listed first): points per game: 77.3 / 59.4; rebound margin: +7.7 / -2.6; turnover margin: +3.7 / -3.6.
5) Tuesday marked the first time all year that UTA has had its full complement of healthy and eligible players. The Mavericks, who return just one scholarship player from last year, have already used eight different starting lineups in 11 contests this season.
 
ABOUT THE CAL POLY MATCHUP
This will be the backend of a home-and-home series, which started a year ago to the day of this year's matchup: Dec. 21, 2017, at the College Park Center. In that contest, UTA broke open a 28-25 halftime lead by out-scoring the Mustangs by 18 in the 2nd half en route to a 77-56 win.
 
Just three of those 77 points UTA scored in last year's game return this year, and those came from walk-on Scott Muirhead who played two minutes. DJ Bryant – who logged 14 minutes, issued four assists but did not score – is the lone scholarship player back for UTA who played in the game last December.
 
ABOUT THE MUSTANGS
The Mustangs are 3-7 on the year, and their two Division-I wins have both come in overtime by one and two points, respectively, to USC Upstate and Bethune-Cookman. Cal Poly is coming off a 74-61 setback at CSU Bakersfield on Tuesday night; prior to that it lost on a last-second shot at California, 67-66.
 
Donovan Fields leads the Mustangs offense at 16 points per game. Mark Crowe is the lone other double-figure point scorer for Cal Poly at 11.1 per outing.
 
Cal Poly is the second Big West Conference member UTA will play in its non-conference slate, with the other being last year's regular-season league champion UC Davis. The Mavericks defeated the Aggies, 68-59, at the CPC on Nov. 18 to start the campaign 3-1.
 
ONE OF THE NATION'S TOUGHEST SCHEDULES
The contest will be another difficult road test for UTA as the Mavericks are projected to have the 7th-hardest non-conference schedule in the nation, according to ESPN's Basketball Power Index. ESPN published an article earlier this week detailing the toughest non-league schedules in the country this year; click here to read the full article (note: ESPN+ subscription required).
 
Of the Mavs' 12 non-league D-I opponents, nine had a .500 or better record last year and seven participated in the postseason.
 
IN THE MIDST OF TOUGH STRETCH
As part of that gruelingly slate, UTA is in the middle portion of a brutal stretch in which five of nine opponents played in the NCAA Tournament last year: Arkansas (L, 78-60; Nov. 23), Missouri (L, 65-45; Dec. 4), #8 Gonzaga (L, 89-55; Dec. 18), Texas (Dec. 28) and Georgia State (Jan. 3). Including UTRGV (College Basketball Invitational) and North Texas – the reigning CBI Champions – seven of this current stretch of nine opponents played in the postseason in 2018.
 
WINS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR
Despite the tough schedule – especially on the road – and the six double-figure point losses as part of the current seven-game slide for UTA, in five of the contests it has been a single-digit margin with less than 10 minutes remaining, with the lone exceptions being the Mizzou and Gonzaga.
 
Against Indiana, UTA got a 20-point 2nd-half deficit down to just one, 61-60, with 6 minutes remaining before falling 78-64. Versus Arkansas, the Mavs had it as a seven-point contest, 56-49, with 7 minutes left before falling 78-60. At Tulsa, it was a four-point game, 50-46, with 10 minutes showing before the Hurricane embarked on a 14-0 run over the next five minutes to put the game out of reach. Against UTRGV, UTA had the contest tied, 56-56, at the under-4 media timeout before the Vaqueros closed on an extended 20-9 run. And versus a North Texas team receiving votes in the national polls on Dec. 8, the Mavericks held a 54-44 lead with less than eight minutes remaining before falling, 63-61.
 
MILESTONE MARK
Brian Warren eclipsed 1,000 career points with a team-leading 12 at Gonzaga Tuesday night, and he enters Friday's matchup with 1,003. In his first two collegiate seasons at Tyler Junior College, Warren tallied 842 points, and he has a team-best 161 this season – the only UTA player with at least 110 points – in the junior's first year wearing the blue and orange.
 
ED'S RETURN
After missing the previous three games with a turf toe injury, UTA's second-leading scorer Edric Dennis (13.3 per game) returned at Gonzaga, scoring eight points in 26 minutes in his first action since coming out of the Tulsa game on Nov. 27. Dennis posted team-best scoring performances of 19 points at Indiana and Arkansas, tallied 20 versus UT Tyler and recorded his first career double-double with 11 points and a career-best 11 rebounds opposite Northern Iowa.
 
UTA BIO BLASTS
0 Brian Warren: The only UTA player who has started every game … has been in double-figure points in all but two games (eight each in those) … pulled down a season-high five rebounds at Gonzaga.
2 DJ Bryant: Has at least one steal in every game this year except one … 20-21 (95.2 percent) from the free-throw line this year.
4 David Azore: 30-35 (85.7 percent) from the free-throw line this season … issued a career-high six assists at North Texas.
10 Radshad Davis: Passed out four assists at North Texas; he entered the game with five helpers all year … the 6-2 guard leads the team with 20 offensive rebounds.
13 Jabari Narcis: All seven points – his most versus a D-I team – and six of his seven rebounds at Indiana came in the 2nd half … six points, his 2nd-most this year, at Gonzaga.
20 Andres Ibarguen: After the missing the first six games of the year, the NCAA cleared him, and in his first two games with UTA – at Tulsa and versus UTRGV – the Mavericks outscored their only two D-I opponents of the year in the paint, and posted their two largest rebounding margins of the season: +14 at Tulsa, +19 against UTRGV.
21 Pedro Castro: Scored a career-high eight points at Missouri (had 12 total career points entering the game).
22 TiAndre Jackson-Young: First two double-figure point games have come in the last two outings at North Texas (12) and Gonzaga (10).
23 Patrick Mwamba: Returned at Arkansas from an ankle injury which caused him to miss most of the previous three games … pulled down a career-high nine rebounds at Mizzou (15 total career rebounds entering the game) … has multiple steals in five games.
 
ODE TO BOBBY
Chris Ogden coached his first-ever road game Nov. 20 at Assembly Hall, and as an ode to former legendary Indiana head coach Bobby Knight and the several connections the two have, Ogden wore a UTA-themed sweater on the sidelines. Ogden attended Knight's camp at IU when he was in 6th grade; his brother, Tanner, played for Knight at Texas Tech; Ogden and Knight's son, Pat, are extremely close friends.
 
KD SHOWS SUPPORT
Kevin Durant sat courtside next to the UTA bench on Nov. 16 at the College Park Center to watch the Mavericks take on Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Durant – a nine-time NBA All-Star, 2014 NBA MVP and two-time NBA Champion with the Golden State Warriors – is close friends with Ogden dating back to their time at Texas. Ogden, who led the Longhorns to the 2003 Final Four as a captain, was an administrative assistant on the 2007-08 Texas squad – Durant's lone collegiate season with Texas.
 
SIRI, WHO ATTENDED UTA PRACTICE ON DEC. 20?
While traveling to San Luis Obispo to face Cal Poly on Dec. 21, UTA practiced at Cal Berkeley on Dec. 20. Prior to the start of the practice, Siri co-founder Adam Cheyer spoke to the team. The entrepreneur and his son, Noah, watched practice, interacted with players and staff after practice and then remained longer to shoot around and engage further with the Mavs.
 
RE-TWEETS
1) UTA opened its season with a 90-66 win on Nov. 6 over UT Tyler – the Mavericks' fifth-straight season-opening win and 12th in the last 13 years. The 90 points were the second-most in a season opener for UTA since 1994 (99 vs. East Texas Baptist in 2011).
2) UTA started the year 3-1; four of the five times this decade that the Mavericks have commenced a season 3-1 it has resulted in a postseason and/or 20-win campaign.
3) The Mavericks went 21-13 overall last year (10-8 in the Sun Belt), finishing 112th in the RPI and reaching the Sun Belt Tournament Final for the first time in their five years in the league.
4) UTA has posted three-straight 20-win seasons. In the 59-year history of the program, the Mavs have only had seven 20-win campaigns, and five of them have come in the last 10 years.
5) UTA has posted some solid early-season showings as the revamped Mavs already own victories over perennially-strong mid-major Northern Iowa and a UC Davis team which returns four starters from a Big West Regular Season Championship and NIT appearance.
6) Of the 707 points UTA has scored through its first 11 games this year, 658 (93 percent) are from players who did not play for the Mavs last season.
7) The 45 points UTA scored at Missouri on Dec. 4 were its fewest since tallying 44 at then-#1 Kentucky in 2014, and were tied for the 6th-fewest all-time in a road game.
 
A WHOLE NEW CREW
UTA lost its top-9 scorers and only returns two letterwinners from last year's team (three total letterwinners; one did not play because of an injury in 2017-18), and just one of those two was a scholarship player (DJ Bryant). The Mavericks had eight seniors graduate and one junior who transferred which accounted for the top-9 scorers not returning in 2018-19.
 
UTA welcomed 12 talented, and in many cases experienced, newcomers at the start of the season. UTA returns just 3.2 percent of its points from a season ago – the lowest percentage of any team in the nation. The Mavericks also return only 4 percent of their rebounds and 11 percent of their assists from last year.
 
However, seven of those newcomers are junior transfers who have a proven record of success at the collegiate level previously. Those seven junior newcomers combined to score 4,009 points, grab 1,788 rebounds and issue 749 assists over their first two years.
 
Least % of Points Returning From 2017-18
1) UT Arlington         3.2% (87 of 2,640)
2) Mount St. Mary's   4.4%
3) UNC Asheville       5.5%
4) Idaho                       6.9%
5) Oakland                  8.6%
6) Middle Tennessee  10.2%
7) Chattanooga           10.5%
8) Wichita State          12.1%
9) Duke                       13.8%
 
Least Career Points Returning (At Current School)
1) Mount St. Mary's   103
2) UT Arlington         130 (DJ Bryant: 85; Scott Muirhead: 41; Patrick Binzer: 4)
3) UNC Asheville       141
4) Chattanooga           241
5) Middle Tennessee  329
    Idaho                       329
 
Least Starts Returning From 2017-18
1) Idaho                       0
2) Mount St. Mary's   1
3) Wichita State          4
4) UNC Asheville       5
5) UT Arlington         7 (All DJ Bryant)
    Duke                       7
 
Fewest Returning Letterwinners
1 - Chattanooga
2 - UNC Asheville
2 - Drake
3 - UT Arlington
3 - Baylor
3 - Nicholls
3 - Duquesne
3 - Milwaukee
3 - Detroit Mercy
3 - Little Rock
 
Fewest Returning Minutes From 2017-18
1) Mount Saint Mary's           7%
2) UT Arlington                     7.9%
     UNC Asheville                  7.9%
4) Idaho                                   10.6%
5) Wichita State                      11.2%
6) Middle Tennessee               15.2%
7) Chattanooga                       15.24%
8) Oakland                              16.5%
9) Drake                                  17.4%
 
Teams With Zero Scholarship Seniors
Virginia
North Florida
UT Arlington
Duquesne
Cal State Northridge
 
ON THE RISE – 20-WIN SEASONS
UTA has posted seven 20-win seasons in its 59-year program history, but five of those have come in the last 10 years – including three in a row.
 
Year                Record            Postseason
2016-17           27-9                 NIT
2015-16           24-11               CIT
2011-12           24-9                 NIT
2017-18           21-13               ----
2007-08           21-12               NCAA
1990-91           20-9                 ----
1980-81           20-8                 NIT
 
MOST WINS IN TEXAS
Over the last 3+ seasons (2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19), UTA owns the 4th-most wins of the 23 D-I schools in the state of Texas (entering games on Dec. 20):
 
1) Stephen F. Austin: 80-31
    Houston: 80-29
3) SMU: 79-30
4) UT Arlington: 75-41
5) Baylor: 74-38
    Texas Tech: 74-38
7) Texas A&M: 71-41
8) Texas A&M-Corpus Christi: 65-43
    TCU: 65-49
10) Sam Houston State: 64-51
11) Texas Southern: 61-55
      Texas State: 61-49
13) Texas: 58-53
14) Lamar: 54-53
15) North Texas: 50-61
16) Abilene Christian: 49-52
      UTEP: 49-56
18) Rice: 47-63
19) Houston Baptist: 43-63
      UTSA: 43-68
21) Incarnate Word: 41-58
22) UTRGV: 40-68
23) Prairie View A&M: 37-71
 
NON-CONFERENCE STRENGTH
UTA will play a challenging non-conference schedule to prepare for the Sun Belt slate. Of its 12 D-I non-league opponents, nine had a .500 or better record last year, seven participated in the postseason in 2017-18 and five finished in the top 100 of the RPI (not including UC Davis which finished at 101).
 
Marquee Games (2017-18 Record | RPI | Postseason | Misc)
WIN, 74-65 | Nov. 10 vs. Northern Iowa | 16-16
WIN, 68-59 | Nov. 18 vs. UC Davis | 22-11 | 101 | NIT | Big West Regular Season Champions
LOSS, 78-64 * | Nov. 20 @ Indiana | 16-15 | RV In National Polls At Time Of Game
LOSS, 78-60 ^ | Nov. 23 @ Arkansas | 23-12 | 34 | NCAA | RV In National Polls At Time Of Game
LOSS, 72-58 % | Nov. 27 @ Tulsa | 19-12 | 89
LOSS, 65-45 | Dec. 4 @ Missouri | 20-13 | 49 | NCAA | RV In 2018-19 Preseason Polls
LOSS, 63-61 | Dec. 8 @ North Texas | 20-18 | CBI Champions | RV In National Polls At Time Of Game
LOSS, 89-55 | Dec. 18 @ Gonzaga | 32-5 | 22 | NCAA | Sweet Sixteen | #8 In National Poll At Time Of Game
Dec. 28 @ Texas | 19-15 | 52 | NCAA
 
* 1-Point Game With 6 Minutes Left | ^ 7-Point Game With 7 Minutes Left | % 4-Point Game With 10 Minutes Left
 
UTA's four 2018 NCAA Tournament opponents on its schedule puts the Mavericks in top-flight competition. The only teams in the nation who will play more than four teams which went to the NCAA Tournament last year in their 2018-19 non-conference schedule are: North Carolina (6), Florida (6), Kansas (5), Kentucky (5), Creighton (5), Northeastern (5) and Canisius (5).
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PLANT YOUR FLAG – 2018-19 UTA Men's Basketball Motto
"Plant Your Flag represents you being you. Being proud of where you came from and representing that – standing up for something. It doesn't matter what it is. Claim something. And then play for it."
– Chris Ogden
 
As part of that 'Plant Your Flag' motto, UTA's roster features a diverse collection of individuals from all over the world:
 
Teams With The Most Foreign-Born Players
12 – Maine
10 – Saint Mary's
7 – Fairfield
      UNLV
      UIC
6 – Bradley
      Davidson
      FAU
      Hartford
5 – UT Arlington (tied with 11 other teams)
 
As part of the foreign-born players, below are the teams with the most continents represented on their roster:
5 – Maine
      Virginia
4 – UT Arlington (tied with 16 other teams)
Continents Represented: North America, South America, Europe, Africa
 
From NBA Academy Africa To UTA
NBA Academies, a network of elite basketball training centers around the world, include educational development for top male and female prospects from outside the U.S. and mark the NBA's signature elite player development initiative. The initiative exposes elite prospects to NBA-level coaching, facilities and competition and provides a global framework for them to maximize their success.
 
Five NBA Academy graduates have committed to D-I schools, in addition to UTA freshman Patrick Mwamba (NBA Academy Africa):

Three men from The NBA Global Academy in Canberra, Australia:
- Francisco Caffaro (Argentina): Virginia
- Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua (Cameroon): UNLV
- Francisco Farabello (Argentina): TCU (for 2019-20 school year)

One woman from the NBA Academies Women's Program camp in Mexico City:
- Karla Martinez (Mexico): University of San Diego

SUN BELT SUCCESS
Since joining the Sun Belt Conference for the 2013-14 season, UTA has finished no worse than 5th place in the regular-season standings in the 12-team league. In 2016-17, the Mavericks won their first-ever SBC Regular Season Championship, and last season they were the preseason favorites to repeat. This year, UTA – due largely to its large roster turnover – was predicted to finish 11th in the SBC.
 
Sun Belt Strategic Men's Basketball Scheduling Plan
With the goal of improving the NCAA Tournament seeding for the Sun Belt's automatic qualifier, in addition to enhancing the resume of other teams to secure at-large berths, the following changes have been implemented beginning in the 2019-20 season:
 
Sun Belt teams will reserve two dates in the non-conference portion of their schedule to play against peer conference opponents. Each team will have one home opponent and one away opponent from this scheduling alliance.
 
In the next major portion of the strategic plan is centered around a 20-game smart schedule. The conference will split into two divisions (East: Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, South Alabama and Troy; West: Little Rock, Arkansas State, Louisiana, ULM, UTA and Texas State). Each team will play a 16-game schedule with five home and five away games played against divisional opponents and three home and three away games against non-divisional opponents.  Based on the resulting standings of those 16 games, teams will then be placed in four pods - Pod A (#1, #2, #3), Pod B (#4, #5, #6), Pod C (#7, #8, #9) and Pod D (#10, #11, #12). Each team will play the other two pod members once home and once away for the final four games of the 20-game schedule. The regular season conference champion will be awarded based on the results of the full 20-game conference schedule.
 
NEXT UP
UTA will break for Christmas before returning to action at in-state foe Texas at 7 p.m. on Dec. 28.