ARLINGTON – The UT Arlington men's basketball team (5-7, 1-0 SBC) will look to open 2022 the same way it ended 2021 with a win when the Mavericks square off with Troy (10-4, 1-0 SBC) in an early-season Sun Belt Conference clash on Saturday, Jan. 1, at 2 p.m. inside the College Park Center.
 

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Game Notes: UT Arlington /// Troy

 
Holiday Hoops Promotion: All kids 18 & under receive FREE admission to the game. Visit the box office on gameday to claim tickets.
 
THE OPENING TIP(s)

• Coming off a thrilling 89-87 overtime win against South Alabama on Thursday night, UTA will be looking to start a Sun Belt season 2-0 for the first time since the 2016-17 campaign; the Mavericks had commenced each of the past four years 0-2. That 2016-17 squad finished 14-4 in the league and won the Sun Belt Regular Season Championship.

• While UTA had the hardest non-conference strength of schedule in the Sun Belt (25th-toughest in the nation), Troy – riding a five-game winning streak – had the 2nd-easiest in the Sun Belt (305th nationally). Eight of the nine Division-I teams UTA played in its non-league slate participated in the NCAA Tournament last year – the most of any team in the nation.
   
• The contest will be a rematch from last year's Sun Belt Tournament First Round, which was a 91-86 Troy victory. This will be the first time UTA and Troy meet in the regular season since the 2019-20 campaign as the Sun Belt went to divisional play last year due to COVID.

TWEETABLES
1) David Azore recorded his second-career 30+ point game with exactly 30 on Thursday night – tied for the 2nd-most points by any Sun Belt player this year against a D-I opponent (App State's Adrian Delph: 39 vs. Delaware).
 
2) UTA established season highs against a D-I opponent in the win over South Alabama with points (89), field goal percentage (.541) and points in a half (41, 1st). USA entered the game holding opponents to just 61 points per game – 2nd-best in the SBC and 41st nationally.
 
3) With a win over Troy, UTA would claim its 100th all-time victory in the College Park Center (99-41, .707). The first game took place on Feb. 1, 2012, with 2012-13 being the first full season of the CPC.
 
4) The two-point win over USA Thursday was the first game this year for UTA decided by five points or less. Additionally, the Mavs' five wins this year have now come when they've scored in the 50s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 100s.
 
5) Kaodirichi Akobundu-Ehiogu – the country's active leader in career blocked shots per game (3.23) – ranks 13th in the nation this year with 3.1 blocks per outing. He has blocked at least one shot in a nation-leading 27-straight games, and in 25 of those he has 2+ rejections.
 
ABOUT THE MATCHUP

• Troy head coach Scott Cross will be returning to UTA for the first time in his career as a visiting coach or player. Cross played at UTA from 1995-98, was an assistant with the Mavs from 1998-2006 and then the head coach from 2006-18.
   
• Current UTA head coach Greg Young was on staff with Cross for nine seasons: 2009-13 as an assistant coach and 2013-18 as an associate head coach.
   
• Both Troy and UTA were picked to finish 9th in the Sun Belt Preseason Coaches Poll, collecting 40 points. Troy is coming off a 78-63 road win at a shorthanded Texas State team on Thursday as the Bobcats were missing two of their top-4 scorers due to COVID protocols.
   
• Troy ranks 28th in the nation in steals per game at 9.6, and the Trojans force opponents into an average of 17.4 turnovers per contest to rank 23rd nationally. Efe Odigie leads the Trojans at 11.1 points per game, while Duke Deen (9.9) and Duke Miles (9.5) are close behind.
   
• The Trojans rely on a bevy of players as their bench (non-starters) have accounted for nearly 44 percent of Troy's total minutes played this year – the 9th-highest percentage of any team in the nation, according to KenPom.

KEY NUMBERS
2: UTA lost its 2nd-leading scorer Pedro Castro for the season after he underwent back surgery on Dec. 18 following an injury suffered at Oral Roberts two days prior.
 
7: Akobundu-Ehiogu recorded his seventh career game of 5+ blocks on Thursday; no other player in program history has more than three such games, and Akobundu-Ehiogu has done it in just 30 contests with UTA.
 
8: UTA has already used eight different starting lineups in 12 games – tied for the 5th-most combinations of any team in the nation (UTEP: 11, Eastern Illinois: 9, Stony Brook: 9, Jacksonville: 9).
 
28: David Azore reached 1,000 career points with a free throw in the 1st half of UTA's contest at Oklahoma on Dec. 19, becoming the 28th member of UTA's 1,000 Point Club.
 
LONG-RANGE THREAT
After undergoing minor back surgery to repair an on-going nerve issue the week of Nov. 15, Carson Bischoff was cleared to return to the court the week of Nov. 22 and made his season debut on Nov. 27 in front of about 30 friends and family at Utah State. A native of Ogden, Utah, Bischoff knocked down three 3-pointers – half of his season total from last year. Through just six games against D-I foes this year, Bischoff is 9-20 from 3-point range, representing 20 percent of UTA's triples this year against D-I opponents (9 of 46).
 
STILL FINDING THEIR FOOTING
In addition to facing a challenging non-league schedule and rotating lineups because of injuries, UTA is still trying to adapt to a new style of play with a roster which has not spent a lot of time together. Based off KenPom's 'Minutes Continuity' analysis, UTA ranks in the bottom 20 percent of all of college basketball in terms of players who have played together the most (288th out of 358 teams).
 
UTA's minutes continuity percentage is just 31.8 – essentially meaning that just under 32 percent of the Mavs total minutes this season have been played by the same players from last year. Of the 70 teams with a worst percentage than UTA, 13 are at 0 percent due to not playing any games last year (i.e. the Ivy League teams and some other select schools).
 
OTHER NOTABLE KENPOM NUMBERS
14.8% – Percentage of UTA's opponent shots this season that have been blocked by the Mavs, ranking as the 22nd-highest in the country.
 
41.7% – Percentage of UTA's total minutes this season which have been played by its bench (non-starters), the 18th-most of any team in the nation.

95.9 – The rating of UTA's opponent defenses so far this season, ranking the 13th-hardest schedule in the country in terms of defenses faced.
 
AMONG THE NATION'S ELITE
Javon Levi spent the previous four seasons at UTRGV, accumulating statistical numbers which place him among the best guards in the nation. Levi ranks in the top 7 among all active D-I players in the country in career assists (5th, 657), steals (4th, 262) and assist-to-turnover ratio (7th, 2.52). Additionally, Levi ranks 4th in career steals per game at 2.22.
 
MOVING ON UP
David Azore is 4th on UTA's all-time program list for made free throws with 323, and currently ranks 8th in free throw percentage at 79.6.
 
DEPTH ON DISPLAY
UTA led the nation along with Abilene Christian and Murray State last season by having 13 different players score double-figure points in a game. So far this year, the Mavs have already had 10 different double-figure scorers – tied for the 7th-most in the nation (Bowling Green: 13; five teams with 11). Below is a list of those players, their respective season highs and how many times they have led UTA in scoring:
 
David Azore: 30 (6x)
Pedro Castro: 17 (3x)
Nicolas Elame: 17 (1x)
Patrick Mwamba: 16
Shemar Wilson: 15 (1x)
Javon Levi: 14
Kaodirichi Akobundu-Ehiogu: 14
Brandyn Talbot: 13
Montez Young Jr.: 12 (1x)
Jack Hoiberg: 11
 
RE-TWEETS

• Kaodirichi Akobundu-Ehiogu posted a career-high 14 points, pulled down six rebounds and blocked six shots against Lamar on Dec. 11. The six blocks are tied for the most by any Sun Belt player this year and are tied for the 5th-most in single-game program history. He went 7-7 from the floor thanks to six alley-oops – tied for the 6th-most makes without a miss in program history (minimum five makes).

• The Mavs were scheduled to face Nevada (NET #135 – Quad 3 opponent at home) on Tuesday, Dec. 7; however, that contest was canceled due to COVID protocols within the Wolf Pack program.
   
• UTA won at UC Santa Barbara on Nov. 29, 70-62, snapping the 6th-longest home winning streak in the country at 20 in a row dating back to 2019. UCSB was the last of five-straight opponents – and six-straight D-I foes for UTA – which played in the NCAA Tournament last year.
   
• UTA's win at UCSB (ranked #93 at the time by KenPom) was its first road non-conference win over a KenPom top-100 team since the Mavs took down BYU (then #73) on Nov. 18, 2018.
   
• Pedro Castro was held scoreless at Utah State, his first pointless game since he was a redshirt freshman with the Mavs (two schools in-between) on Mar. 16, 2019, in a Sun Belt Tournament semifinal win over Georgia Southern. He bounced back impressively with a team-high 16 points at UC Santa Barbara two days later.
   
• UTA shot 64.2 percent (43-67) from the floor on Nov. 13 against Mary Hardin-Baylor, which was tied for the 7th-best mark in single-game program history. It was the 2nd-highest percentage in program history when making at least 40 shots (66 percent, 40-62, at Texas Wesleyan on Jan. 2, 1965).
   
• Shemar Wilson led the way with that shooting percentage as he went a perfect 6-6 from the floor – tied for the 10th-most makes in program history without a miss.
   
• Javon Levi posted his seventh-career double-double with 12 points and 10 assists against UMHB. It was the first points-assists double-double by a UTA player since Brian Warren had 15 and 12 versus Arkansas Tech on Nov. 24, 2019.
   
• Greg Young secured his first-career win at the D-I level with the 104-75 victory over Mary Hardin-Baylor. Young – who was named the ninth head coach in program history this past spring following 12 seasons on the UTA sidelines as either an assistant (2009-13) or associate head coach (2013-21) – had previously served as a junior college head coach for 10 seasons, accumulating an overall record of 168-139. His first-career victory over a D-I opponent came on Nov. 29 at UC Santa Barbara.
   
• The Mavs had six different players reach double-figure points against Mary Hardin-Baylor. The last time UTA had exactly six in double figures was an NIT Second Round victory over Akron on Mar. 20, 2017. UTA had eight double-figure scorers in a 117-53 win opposite Howard Payne on Dec. 22, 2020.
   
• The Mavs handed out 28 assists against UMHB, one shy of cracking the top-10 single-game program record list.

ACU SUMMARY
UTA suffered an 80-71 overtime loss on Nov. 16 to Abilene Christian despite holding a three-point lead with less than two seconds remaining in regulation. Leading 63-60, UTA's Wilson grabbed a rebound off a missed ACU free throw and was surrounded by a pair of Wildcats.
 
One official signaled for an ACU foul for grabbing Wilson around the waist with 1.5 seconds left. However, another official under the basket called for a jump ball. That ended up being the final decision, and with the possession arrow in favor of ACU, the visitors got the ball back under their own basket and knocked down a contested 3-pointer on the ensuing inbounds to force OT, where the Wildcats out-scored the Mavs, 17-8.

NEXT UP
UTA is scheduled to hit the road to take on Georgia State on Thursday, Jan. 6, and Georgia Southern on Saturday, Jan. 8. Georgia State had to cancel its first two Sun Belt games this weekend against Arkansas State and Little Rock due to COVID protocols.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
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