SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Shorthanded, plagued with foul trouble, mired in a four-game losing streak and playing its fifth-straight opponent which went to the NCAA Tournament a season ago.
None of it mattered for the UT Arlington men's basketball team (2-5) Monday night as the Mavericks picked up a massive win over the defending and preseason Big West Conference Champion UC Santa Barbara Gauchos (3-2) inside The Thunderdome, 70-62.
UTA led for all but five minutes en route to snapping the nation's 6th-longest home winning streak at 20 in a row and collecting its first road top-100 non-conference win since the 2018 season opener at BYU.
Pedro Castro impressively bounced back from his first scoreless game in nearly two-and-a-half years to deliver a team-high 16 points to pace the Mavs, who placed three others in double-figure scoring.
Jack Hoiberg notched a career-high 11 thanks to a perfect 9-9 effort from the free throw line,
David Azore equaled those 11 and
Patrick Mwamba stepped up with a season-best 10 after scoring just four points through his first three games in what has so far been a health-impacted season.
The Mavs – who led for the final 28 minutes of the contest – possessed a 13-point advantage, 63-50, with four minutes remaining before UCSB clipped off an 8-0 run to pull within five with under 60 seconds to play. However, Azore put an end to that surge by knocking down a free throw, and following a big defensive stand Hoiberg hit a pair from the charity stripe to ice the game.
UTA was playing without its 3rd-leading scorer in
Nicolas Elame (7.6 points per game) due to a hamstring injury for the second-straight game, and also were without the services of
Lazaro Rojas due to an eye injury. Rojas was coming off his best game of the year with eight points and six rebounds at Utah State on Saturday.
As UTA's tallest player, the 6-11 Rojas would have been a formidable force in the low blocks against UCSB's Amadou Sow, who entered the game ranked 19th in the nation in scoring (20.8) and 20th in field goal percentage (.660). The Maverick plans for guarding Sow ran into more problems as their next three tallest players all collected two fouls in opening 10 minutes.
Perhaps ironically, though, that's at about the juncture in the game that UTA turned things around as it never trailed after that point. Sow did finish with 23 points on 10-15 shooting and seven rebounds, but for the most part the Mavs did a great job neutralizing him.
QUOTABLE
"I'm really proud of our guys tonight; we beat a good, top-100 team on the road – and it's been a while since that happened," said UTA head coach
Greg Young, who picked up his first career win over a Division-I opponent. "Our guys just kept hanging in there. We didn't get gimmicky, and we just kept doing what we were doing and believing in ourselves. We're going to enjoy this one tonight and we're going to build on it."
BOX SCORE NUGGETS
- Kaodirichi Akobundu-Ehiogu and Montez Young Jr. led UTA with eight rebounds each.
- Javon Levi passed out a game-high six assists against just one turnover. He also posted a game-best three steals.
- UCSB entered the game ranked 5th nationally in field goal percentage (53.3 / 43.6 on Monday), 4th in assists per game (20.5 / 16), 5th in 3-point defensive percentage (22.9 / 31.3), 6th in defensive field goal percentage (34.4 / 40.4), 8th in points per game (87.8 / 62) and 8th in rebounds per game (44.8 / 36) as UTA held the Gauchos below their season averages in all of those key categories.
- Perhaps the biggest number from those was the rebounding differential as despite all of UTA's foul issues – of which four players finished the night with four fouls each – the Mavs out-rebounded the Gauchos, 37-36.
- UTA committed a season-low 11 turnovers and set a season best by allowing UCSB to only shoot 21.4 percent (3-14) from the 3-point line. UTA also forced a season-high 18 turnovers.
- UTA used its fifth-different starting lineup of the year: Levi, Shemar Wilson, Azore, Castro and Mwamba.
- Akobundu-Ehiogu blocked a shot (two in total) for the seventh-straight game to start the year, moving him past Johnny Hamilton and into sole possession of 7th place on the program's all-time blocked shots list (79).
- UTA finished 19-25 (76 percent) from the free throw line and 23-57 (40.4 percent) from the floor.
GAME FLOW
Neither team led by more than four points in the opening 15 minutes, but UTA took a seven-point lead, 29-22, at the 4:16 mark after an Azore and-1 finish.
That seven-point edge was UTA's largest in any game since the Mary Hardin-Maylor contest on Nov. 13, and the Mavs took their first halftime lead as well since that contest when they went into the locker room in front, 33-31.
UTA scored the first seven points of the 2nd half, and eventually created their first double-figure advantage of the night at the 15:13 mark, 43-33, following a Wilson free throw. The Mav edge swelled to as much as 13 on multiple occasions, the last of which came before the aforementioned 8-0 run by the Gauchos in the closing minutes.
THIS AND THAT
- UTA and UCSB had met twice previously: in 1970 in Santa Barbara and in 2019 in Arlington. Incredibly, the only Mav to play in the 2019 game and Monday night's was Azore.
- This was UTA's second game in California in 10 days (San Diego State on Nov. 20).
- UCSB was already the sixth opponent for UTA this season which played in the NCAA Tournament last year (Oklahoma State, Abilene Christian, North Texas, San Diego State, Utah State). Five of those have come on the road; lone exception: overtime loss to ACU.
- The Gauchos went 22-5 overall and 13-3 in Big West Conference play on their way to a Big West regular season title, a Big West Tournament Championship and a trip to the NCAA Tournament last season.
NEXT UP
UTA will have a week in-between games as the Mavs will return to the College Park for the first time in three-and-a-half weeks when they welcome another traditionally strong mid-major program in Nevada for a 7 p.m. tipoff on Tuesday, Dec. 7.
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).
