ATLANTA – Coming into the game as one of the best ball-protecting teams in the nation, the UT Arlington men's basketball team (4-8, 0-1 Sun Belt) committed a season-high 20 turnovers, and despite a career-high 23 points from David Azore the Mavericks dropped their conference opener at Georgia State (7-3, 0-1 SBC) Thursday night, 83-77.
 
UTA entered the contest ranked 11th in the country by only committing an average of 10.8 turnovers, but gave the ball away four times more than its previous high this year. That led directly to 17 Georgia State points as the hosts won the rematch of each of the last two Sun Belt Tournament Final games.
 
A redshirt sophomore, Azore came into the night as UTA's leading scorer on the year at 12.6 per game, but shockingly hadn't led the Mavs in scoring in any game. That streak was emphatically broken on Thursday as the Houston native eclipsed the 20-point plateau for the first time in his career on 6-11 shooting and a perfect 8-8 from the free-throw line.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
A short and quick 5-0 Panthers' run in a 30-second span at the mid-point of the 2nd half turned a 47-47 game into a 52-47 GSU lead with a little over 10 minutes remaining. UTA got the deficit down to just two, 54-52, a few minutes later, but that would be as close as the Mavericks would get as they dropped their fifth in a row to the Panthers, who have won the SBC Tournament three of the last four years.
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
Returning the lineup after missing the previous two games with a broken nose and concussion, the masked TiAndre Jackson-Young delivered his highest-scoring output of the season versus a Division-I opponent with 16 points to go along with four rebounds.
 
Plagued with foul trouble in the 2nd half, Brian Warren remained effective on the offensive end and poured in 19 points while grabbing five rebounds and issuing three assists.
 
In addition to his 23 points, Azore secured three rebounds and dished out a team-best four assists. He went 3-4 from 3-point range, establishing a career high in makes from beyond the arc.
 
Nine of the 10 UTA players which took the court scored, with the surprisingly lone exception being the Mavs' 3rd-leading scorer, Jabari Narcis, who entered the game as the team's leading 3-point shooter in terms of makes (21) and averaging 9.1 points per game. A 6-foot-9 forward, Narcis did pull down a team-best seven rebounds.
 
UTA went a perfect 17-17 from the free-throw line to keep itself in the contest despite shooting just 24.2 percent (8-33) from 3-point range and 40 percent (26-65) from the floor for the game. GSU shot 40.9 percent (27-66) from the field, 27.8 percent (5-18) from 3 and 70.6 percent (24-34) from the free-throw line as the hosts marched to the charity stripe twice as many times as the visitors.
 
Damon Wilson tallied a team-high 22 points for GSU, while Kane Williams added 17 and nine rebounds and Justin Roberts rounded out the trio of double-figure scorers for the Panthers with 15.
 
GSU won the rebounding edge ever so slightly, 42-41 – including a 15-12 edge on the offensive glass – but UTA out-scored the Panthers in second-chance points, 17-10. However, a few key sequences late when the Mavs were trying to mount a comeback proved vital as GSU registered a good portion of those second-chance opportunities in the closing minutes.
 
THEY SAID IT – Head Coach Chris Ogden
"We put ourselves in a position to win this game, but that's not often going to happen when you commit 20 turnovers like we did tonight. We didn't value the ball as much as we have been all year, and that cost us. Give Georgia State credit too; they made some winning, hustle plays at the end with timely offensive rebounds. That's something we've got to clean up as well and protect our backboard in clutch time.
 
1ST-HALF RUNDOWN
After the two sides traded the first 15 or so points of the night, Georgia State put together an extended 17-2 run to open up its largest lead of the night at 23-10 at the midway point of the stanza.
 
However, UTA orchestrated a vitally-important counter run with an extended 25-7 stretch to go from down 13 to up five, 35-30, before settling for a 35-33 halftime lead – the first advantage the Mavs have held on the Panthers after 20 minutes in five meetings (Feb. 24, 2018; UTA's last win over GSU).
 
After committing eight turnovers in the first 11 minutes of the half, the Mavs didn't give the ball away once over the final nine minutes.
 
2ND-HALF RUNDOWN
UTA started the 2nd half in identical fashion to how it did the 1st as the Mavs gave the ball away nine times in the first eight minutes. Despite that, the contest remained tied, 47-47, at the under-12 media timeout. However, out of that stoppage, the Panthers had a quick 5-0 surge and Ogden took his second timeout to halt that run.
 
It worked as Warren delivered a baseline jumper out of the timeout, and following a Jackson-Young 3-pointer a few minutes later the Mavs had cut their deficit to the aforementioned 54-52.
 
However, GSU – which has now won 10-straight home games and six overall – responded with an 8-0 run to open up a double-figure lead, 62-52, and UTA wasn't able to get closer than five the rest of the night.
 
THIS AND THAT

• Georgia State won the 2018 SBC Tournament Final as the #2 seed over #4 seed UTA, 74-61, and the 2019 title as the #1 seed over #2 seed UTA, 73-64.
• UTA still owns the third-most Sun Belt wins (68) since joining the league in 2013-14 (Georgia State: 79; Louisiana: 72).
• The Mavs also won four non-conference games last year and started the year 4-11 (0-2 in the league) before winning 12 of their final 16 regular-season games to finish the year at 12-6 in Sun Belt play.
• Georgia State head coach Rob Lanier was an assistant coach at Texas for two years from 1999-2001 – Ogden's freshman and sophomore seasons with the Longhorns.
• Patrick Mwamba missed his seventh-straight game with a broken right foot; Coleman Sparling returned to the lineup after missing the previous two games with a lower leg/Achilles injury and scored two points in 10 minutes.
• This was the second-straight year UTA and GSU have commenced conference play against each other.

NEXT UP
The Mavs conclude their SBC-opening road trip at Georgia Southern on Saturday, Dec. 21, at 12 p.m. Central (1 p.m. local Eastern). The Eagles are 7-4 (1-0 Sun Belt) after coming back to defeat Texas State in their league opener Thursday, 67-64.
   
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).