ARLINGTON – The UT Arlington men's basketball team (4-5) trimmed a 20-point 2nd-half deficit down to just six with six minutes remaining, but North Texas (3-5) had a response en route to sending the Mavericks to a 77-66 setback Monday night inside the College Park Center.
 
UTA dug itself a 48-28 deficit four-and-a-half minutes into the 2nd half, but mounted an extended 26-12 run over the next eight minutes to pull within 60-54. The Mavs had the ball down those six points, but a turnover resulted in a 3-pointer the other way to trigger a 6-0 run by UNT, and the Mavs could get no closer than eight the rest of the night.
 
David Azore scored a career-high 17 points and matched a career best with six assists, while Brian Warren tallied a game-high-tying 18 points to lead the Mavs, who shot 53.8 percent (14-26) from the floor in the 2nd half, but allowed UNT to connect at a torching 60.9-percent rate (14-23).
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
UTA scored the first four points of the game and held a lead for 1:31, but after that UNT responded with an 8-0 run to build an 8-4 lead and never looked back, leading for the final 37 minutes and 10 seconds of the contest.
 
UNT out-toughed UTA to the tune of a +10 (38-28) discrepancy on the boards – tied for the Mavs' 2nd-worst of the young season. The Mean Green also took advantage down low on the offensive end, out-scoring the Mavs in the paint, 36-18 – something UTA had done to each of its previous three opponents entering Monday.
 
The Mean Green finished the night at 50 percent from the floor (27-54), while UTA went 41.8 percent (23-55). Despite their 2-5 record entering the game, the collective records of the five teams UNT had lost to this year was an empahtic 30-2.
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
Warren and Azore were the lone double-figure scorers for UTA. TiAndre Jackson-Young scored all nine of his points in the 2nd half, while Radshad Davis came off the bench to score seven points and grab a team-best eight rebounds.
 
UNT received a double-double effort from Zachary Simmons with 12 points and 10 rebounds, while Umoja Gibson and Javion Hamlet each netted 18 points to lead the Mean Green. Deng Geu added 10 points and eight boards in a starting role as UNT played just eight players.
 
The Mean Green converted 13 UTA turnovers into 17 points, while the Mavs only turned 13 Mean Green giveaways into eight points.
 
THEY SAID IT – Head Coach Chris Ogden
"There's not much to say; we got whipped from the opening tip. They controlled the game. They out-toughed us; they were better players, better coaches; just a tougher team than we were tonight. We have to get back to work and get more competitive."
 
1ST-HALF RUNDOWN
Saddled with foul trouble and struggling on the glass, UTA dug itself a 17-point hole, 27-10, just more than 13 minutes into the half. To that point, the Mavs had been called for eight fouls compared with just one for the Mean Green, and that foul trouble forced two of UTA's top-three leading scorers in Azore and Narcis, along with Davis (6.3 PPG), to the bench.
 
In search of an offensive catalyst, Warren provided that for the Mavs as he ended up leading all scorers in the opening stanza with 10 points, as he helped trim the UTA deficit to 10, 30-20. However, despite having multiple possessions to try and cut that margin to single digits, the Mavericks couldn't, and went into the half trailing, 35-23, after shooting just 31 percent from the floor (9-29) while being out-rebounded, 23-16, and being whistled for 10 fouls compared with four for UNT.
 
2ND-HALF RUNDOWN
The Conference USA member from Denton didn't take its foot off the accelerator coming out of the locker room as UNT opened the period by making six of its first seven shots and opening up its largest lead of the night at the aforementioned 48-28 scoreline at the under-16 timeout.
 
Trying to win chunks of four-minute stretches to get back into the game, the Mavs had a big portion of that shaved off as they got the margin down to 14 before the under-12 break, but UNT's quick 5-0 surge put the visitors back up 19, 57-38, at the under-12 timeout.
 
Much more aggressive than it was in the 1st half, UTA got to the bonus just seven minutes into the 2nd half and took advantage, marching to the free throw line 15 times (compared with just two times in the 1st half), and that – coupled with executing on the defensive end – allowed the Mavs to get the margin all the way down to six at 60-54 following a fastbreak pull-up jumper from Jackson-Young – who just had a toe on the line which would have made it a five-point game.
 
That prompted a UNT timeout, and out of that break Azore forced a steal; however, Warren was called for a travel on the ensuing Maverick possession and that allowed the Mean Green to trigger their 6-0 run to put the game out of reach.
 
THIS AND THAT

• Azore – who reached double-figure points for the eighth-straight game – recorded season bests in both free throws made and attempted after going 8-10 from the charity stripe. His six assists were also a game high.
• The Mavericks scored eight points more than what the Mean Green had been giving up on the season at 58.4 per game.
• Warren came into the game with just four 3-pointers made on the year, but finished with four makes beyond the arc on Monday.
• The Mavs' 23 1st-half points were the fewest in the opening period this season (26 at #8 Gonzaga).
• Narcis played a season-low nine minutes and was limited to just two points on the night (entered 3rd on the team at 10.5 PPG).
• Jackson-Young (+5) was the only Maverick to finish with better than a +1 plus/minus ratio.

NEXT UP
The Mavs close out the home portion of their non-conference schedule by entertaining UC Santa Barbara (4-3 entering a contest at CSU Bakersfield on Tuesday) on Saturday, Dec. 7, at 2 p.m.
   
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.
 
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