SPOKANE, Wash. – Facing the #8 team in the nation on their home floor for the second-straight year, the UT Arlington men's basketball team (2-3) came within two shots of potentially knocking off Gonzaga (5-0), but the Mavericks fell just short on Tuesday night, 72-66, in front of sellout crowd inside the McCarthey Athletic Center.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Jabari Narcis recorded a team-high 16 points on 5-5 from 3-point range, while Brian Warren and David Azore both added 15 for the Mavs, who out-shot the best shooting team in the nation.
 
Entering play on Tuesday, Gonzaga held the best field-goal percentage in the country at 56.6 percent for the year, but UTA held the Bulldogs to 39.1 percent (25-64) while connecting at a 39.6-percent clip (21-53) of its own. Included in that defensive effort for the Mavs was limiting Gonzaga to just 22.7 percent (5-22) from 3-point range while delivering a 42.3-percent performance (11-26) of their own from distance.
 
UTA led for more than 16 minutes in the 1st half before entering the locker room down just one, 28-27, at halftime. The Mavs re-tied the contest on multiple occasions early in the 2nd half, but Gonzaga eventually created a little bit of separation and built a lead as large as 13.
 
However, the Mavs – facing their second nationally-ranked opponent in three days – demonstrated a ton of grit and fought their way back to make it a two-possession game with under a minute remaining. However, that six-point differential would end up being the difference as Gonzaga extended its nation-best regular-season winning streak to 25 games in a row dating back to last year.
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
UTA provided the sternest test of the year for Gonzaga, which had won its four games all by 30 or more points, including a 79-49 throttling in College Station of Texas A&M last Friday.
 
Warren – who hurt his left arm midway through the 2nd half – battled through that to tie his season-high point total while also adding three rebounds and issuing a team-high four assists. Azore reached double-figure points for the fourth-straight game with a season-best total on 4-6 shooting and four boards.
 
Narcis, a 6-foot-9 forward, registered his third game of the year already with three or more triples as he tied for the 2nd-best 3-point percentage performance in program history. Of players who have made at least five 3-pointers in a game, Narcis is now just the third player in program history to go 5-5 or better, joining Scott Cross (5-5 vs. UTSA on Feb. 14, 1998) and Kevin Butler (7-7 at Idaho on Feb. 14, 2013).
 
A game-time decision, Gonzaga's Killian Tillie arguably won the game for the Zags. The senior made his season debut on Tuesday after recovering from knee surgery last month, and delivered 15 points and eight rebounds in a starting role. Seven of those points came in the closing five minutes as Gonzaga was staving off a UTA surge.
 
Ryan Woolridge led all scorers with 19 points for the Zags, while Admon Gilder matched Tillie's 15.
 
THEY SAID IT – Head Coach Chris Ogden
"I'm really proud of our effort. We gave ourselves a chance to win this game, but just didn't make enough plays. We've got something to build on; we can be a really good team – one that is really hard to beat. With that being said, I'm still not OK with a loss. We had chances to win the game. But I am proud of our effort and our focus, and that's something we will build on as we move forward."

Raw. Open. Honest.

A must-see and must-listen 2 minutes in the locker room with @CoachOG after playing #8 Gonzaga to a two-possession game.

🔷#MavUp🔶 pic.twitter.com/eKLKeroncs

— UTA Men's Basketball (@UTAMavsMBB) November 20, 2019

1ST-HALF RUNDOWN
UTA got off to a quick start and held a 9-5 lead at the under-16 timeout, and the visitors continued to build on that lead as the Mavs eventually held advantages as large as seven on two occasions – the last of which came at the 5:30 mark, 24-17.
 
Gonzaga put together a run late in the half, but on an Ayoub Nouhi 3-pointer in the closing minute, the Mavs held a four-point edge, 27-23, before the Bulldogs closed the stanza on a 5-0 spurt over the final 40 seconds to take just a one-point lead into the locker room, 28-27.
 
The Mavs held the Bulldogs to just 34.3-percent shooting (12-35) in the opening half, including limiting them to only a 20-percent clip (3-15) from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, UTA shot it at 33.3 percent (9-27) and 35.7 percent (5-14) from 3-point range – with three of those coming from Narcis as he led all scorers in the opening 20 minutes with nine points on a perfect 3-3 from deep.
 
2ND-HALF RUNDOWN
UTA tied the contest back up multiple times early in the 2nd half before Gonzaga ultimately forged ahead with the aforementioned double-figure lead. However, the Bulldogs possessed that double-figure advantage for just a few minutes in the closing period.
 
The Mavs faced several moments of adversity over the final 20 minutes. In addition to Warren's hard fall, Azore was saddled on the bench with four fouls for many minutes before those fouls got changed to Coleman Sparling. Furthermore, trailing by just three, 40-37, about five minutes into the half, Patrick Mwamba went down with a non-contact foot injury after corralling a rebound and did not return.
 
Despite all that, UTA turned to its depth as the Mavs had three different 15-point scorers for the first time this year. In total, UTA had eight different players score; Warren had 12 of his points in the 2nd half while Azore netted 11 of his in the closing period.
 
THIS AND THAT

• Jordan Phillips scored five points and grabbed five rebounds; Nouhi and freshman Sam Griffin also tallied five points for UTA.
• A native of about three hours away from Spokane in Ellensburg, Wash., Sparling had about 35 friends and family in attendance as part of the sellout crowd of 6,000.
• This was the third-straight opponent for UTA which played in the NCAA Tournament last year, and the final foe of a four-game stretch for the Mavs which were ranked in the KenPom preseason top 100.
• UTA is now 8-8 all-time against current members of the West Coast Conference. The Mavs had won five-straight games from 2016-18, with the biggest of those victories coming at then-#12 Saint Mary's, 65-51, on Dec. 8, 2016.
• That win over Saint Mary's remains UTA's only victory against a nationally-ranked opponent.
• This was the second-straight year UTA has faced Gonzaga when the Bulldogs were ranked #8 in the nation.
• Since 2011-12, Gonzaga has the best winning percentage in the nation; this was Gonzaga's 26th-straight win at home – the 2nd-longest active streak in the country.
• UTA also played #14 Oregon – which rose to #11 in the new poll released Monday – on Sunday night in Eugene.

NEXT UP
UTA returns back home to face Arkansas Tech on Sunday, Nov. 24, at 1 p.m. The Division-II member is off to a 2-1 start entering a pair of conference games later this week.
   
PURCHASE TICKETS
Season tickets start as low as $99, and tickets for all home games are available by visiting UTATickets.com, calling the UTA Box Office at (817) 272-9595 or by stopping by the College Park Center during regular business hours.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
For updates, behind-the-scenes photos, videos and more engaging and personal content, be sure to follow the men's basketball program on Twitter (@UTAMavsMBB), Instagram (@UTAMavsMBB) and Facebook (/UTAMavsMBB).