SAN MARCOS – Coming off one of its best defensive efforts of the season on Thursday, the UT Arlington men's basketball team (9-11, 5-4 SBC) will look to complete a weekend sweep of rival Texas State (12-6, 3-3 SBC) Saturday when the Mavericks and Bobcats tip off inside Strahan Arena at 4 p.m.
 

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Game Notes: UT Arlington  ///  Texas State

 
THE OPENING TIP(s)

• UTA held Texas State to its second-fewest points this year (47 at Houston) in the 70-58 win on Thursday to snap a mini three-game losing streak. The 58 points were also the 3rd-fewest the Mavs have allowed this season to a Division-I opponent (Lamar: 47, Troy: 57).
   
• Patrick Mwamba delivered a team-high 15 points for the Mavs on Thursday – the first time a UTA player other than David Azore led the club in scoring in a game in which Azore played since Pedro Castro had 17 on Nov. 29 at UC Santa Barbara, a stretch of nine-straight contests Azore paced UTA.
   
• Azore leads the Sun Belt Conference with 17.9 points for the year and a gaudy 24 per game in league play. He had a streak of 12-straight double-figure scoring games snapped with nine on Thursday (dating back to Nov. 18 at North Texas). Azore had incredibly increased his season point-per-game average every game since Nov. 29 until Thursday.
   

TWEETABLES
1) UTA has now defeated each of the top-3 teams in the Sun Belt Preseason Poll in Georgia State (1st), Louisiana (2nd) and Texas State (3rd).
 
2) Lazaro Rojas continued his great play by tying a career high with 12 points for the second-straight game on Thursday.
 
3) All four of UTA's Sun Belt losses have been by seven points or less. Three of their last six games have gone to overtime (lost all three), and two of those were decided by a total of three points.
 
4) The Mavs have already set a single-season program record by having five games go to overtime (1-4), including four conference contests (1-3) – also the most in a single year in program history.
 
5) UTA has had 12 different players score double-figure points in a game this year – tied for the 3rd-most of any team in the nation (Bowling Green and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi both with 13).
 
STANDOUT PERFORMANCES
Azore tied for the 10th-most points in single-game program history last Saturday at Little Rock with a career-high 37, already representing his third 30+ point game in Sun Belt play this year; the rest of the league combined has zero. Azore made 17 free throws in the Little Rock game – equaling the most by any player in the nation this year, the most by a UTA player since 1979 and tied for the 4th-most in program history. Azore ranks 8th in the nation with 103 made free throws this year.
 
Carson Bischoff tied a single-game program record with nine made 3-pointers at Little Rock, reaching double-figure points for the first time in his UTA career with 27. The 27 points and nine 3s at the time incredibly represented 29 percent of his total points and 30 percent of his total 3s made with UTA. The nine 3s are the most by a Sun Belt player in any game this year and tied for the 7th-most in the country this season.
 
ABOUT TEXAS STATE
» UTA stopped a three-game losing streak to Texas State with the victory on Thursday. The Mavs had won 17 of the previous 20 meetings from 2012-20 prior to the Bobcats winning three in a row.
 
» Texas State ranks 3rd in Sun Belt games by only allowing opponents to score 66.3 points, while UTA ranks 2nd in the league by averaging 74.2 points in conference contests.
 
» Additionally, UTA pulls down a league-best 39.9 rebounds per game in Sun Belt play, while the Bobcats limit league foes to a conference-low 31.2 rebounds.
 
THURSDAY'S BRIEF RECAP
UTA never trailed and connected at 49 percent (23-47) from the floor on an evening in which it retired the #0 jersey of Marquez Haynes. UTA raced out to a 21-5 lead just eight minutes into the contest, allowed Texas State to get as close as two, 43-41, eight minutes into the 2nd half, but staved off the defending Sun Belt Conference regular-season champions thanks to limiting the visitors to their second-lowest scoring output of the season.
 
NOTEWORTHY

• Rojas recorded the first double-double of his career at Little Rock on Jan. 22 with a career-high 12 points and career-best 13 rebounds.
   
• Javon Levi recorded just the third triple-double in program history with 14 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in an 83-73 win over Louisiana on Jan. 13. Erick Neil had the only other two for UTA on Nov. 27, 2017, versus UT Dallas (10p, 10r, 13a), and on Jan. 28, 2016, at ULM (27p, 10r, 12a).
   
• Against Louisiana, UTA registered season highs versus a Division-I opponent in field goal percentage (55.7), assists (22) and points in regulation (83). The Ragin' Cajuns entered the game ranked 2nd in league games by holding opponents to just 65.3 points per contest and 1st in field goal percentage defense (35.3).

JOINING THE WAC
On Jan. 21, UT Arlington officially accepted an invitation to join the Western Athletic Conference effective July 1, 2022, making UTA the 15th member of the WAC and eighth school based in Texas during the 2022-23 academic year.
 
UTA was a member of the Southland Conference from 1963-2012, a one-year former WAC member in 2012-13 and has been a Sun Belt institution since 2013-14.
 
NON-CONFERENCE SCHEDULE STRENGTH
UTA played the hardest non-conference schedule of any Sun Belt team (18th-toughest in the nation). The Mavs faced five Quad 1 opponents; no other team in the league faced more than three as UTA was responsible for nearly 25 percent of the Sun Belt's 22 combined Quad 1 games. In fact, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Little Rock, Troy and Coastal Carolina have combined for just three Quad 1 games – two fewer than UTA on its own.
 
AZORE NAMED PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Azore earned UTA's first Sun Belt Player of the Week honor in nearly two years on Jan. 4 after averaging 27 points, seven rebounds, shooting 54 percent from the floor and 93 percent from the free throw line.
 
He is the first Mav to win SBC Player of the Week since Brian Warren on Feb. 4, 2019. Warren was named Co-Player that week, meaning Azore is the first outright winner of the weekly award in the league since Erick Neal on Feb. 26, 2018.
 
KEY NUMBERS
2: UTA lost its then-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.
 
4: UTA committed just four turnovers against Troy on Jan. 1 – tied for the fewest in program history in the last 10 years (Louisiana on Jan. 31, 2020).
 
6: Six of UTA's nine wins this year have come when scoring in the 50s, 60s, 70, 80s, 90s or 100s.
 
7: Kaodirichi Akobundu-Ehiogu recorded his seventh-career game of 5+ blocks against South Alabama on Dec. 30; no other player in program history has more than three such games, and Akobundu-Ehiogu has done it in just 38 contests with UTA.
 
8: UTA played the most non-conference opponents in the nation that participated in the NCAA Tournament last year with incredibly eight. Of the nine D-I foes the Mavs faced in their non-league schedule only one (Lamar) didn't play in March Madness in 2021.
 
9: The Mavs played four-straight games from Jan. 6-15 with just nine scholarship players due to injuries and COVID protocols. UTA was without Jack Hoiberg and Carson Bischoff at Georgia State and Georgia Southern and without David Azore and Lazaro Rojas versus Louisiana and ULM.
 
11: UTA has already used 11 different starting lineups in 20 games – tied for the 6th-most combinations of any team in the nation (14: Memphis; 13: Stony Brook, Eastern Illinois, Alabama State; 12: UTEP).
 
41 – Percentage of UTA's total minutes this season which have been played by its bench (non-starters), the 16th-most of any team in the nation.
 
51: UTA pulled down 51 boards on Jan. 6 in out-rebounding Georgia State, 51-32. That's the most caroms for the Mavs versus a D-I opponent since 55 against Troy on Mar. 5, 2016. Additionally, 18 of those came on the offensive glass – UTA's most against any D-I team in more than a decade.
 
100: With a 62-57 win over Troy on Jan. 1, UTA claimed its 100th all-time victory in the College Park Center (100-41, .709). The first game took place on Feb. 1, 2012, with 2012-13 being the first full season of the CPC.
 
1,000: 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. Levi crossed off the milestone on a layup at Georgia Southern on Jan. 8; 918 of the grad transfer's points came at UTRGV.
 
AMONG THE NATION'S ELITE
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 8 among all active D-I players in the country in career assists (4th, 698), steals (4th, 278) and assist-to-turnover ratio (8th, 2.51). Additionally, Levi ranks 6th in career steals per game at 2.2.
 
MOVING ON UP
Azore is 4th on UTA's all-time program list for made free throws with 371, and currently ranks 8th in free throw percentage at .800.
 
DEPTH ON DISPLAY
UTA tied for the national lead last season by having 13 different players score double-figure points in a game. So far this year, the Mavs have had 12 different double-figure scorers – tied for the 3rd-most in the nation (Bowling Green, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi each with 13). Below is a list of those players, their respective season highs and how many times they have led UTA in scoring:
 
David Azore: 37 (11x)
Carson Bischoff: 27
Patrick Mwamba: 22 (3x)
Pedro Castro: 17 (3x)
Nicolas Elame: 17 (1x)
Shemar Wilson: 15 (1x)
Javon Levi: 14, 2x
Kaodirichi Akobundu-Ehiogu: 14
Brandyn Talbot: 13
Montez Young Jr.: 12 (1x)
Lazaro Rojas: 12, 2x
Jack Hoiberg: 11
 
RE-TWEETS

• 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 #121 – 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.
   
• 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.
   
• 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.

NEXT UP
UTA will return home to welcome Coastal Carolina on Thursday, Feb. 3, at 7 p.m. before hosting defending Sun Belt Tournament Champion App State on Saturday, Feb. 5, at 5 p.m.
 
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).