PENSACOLA, Fla. – The 9th-seeded UT Arlington men's basketball team mounted a massive comeback from down 17 late in the 1st half to give itself a shot at the end of regulation to tie the game, but the Mavericks dropped a heart-breaking 67-64 contest against 8th-seeded Louisiana on Thursday in the opening round of the Hercules Tires Sun Belt Conference Men's Basketball Championship.
 
UTA cut its deficit to four points on multiple occasions in the 2nd half, but Louisiana re-established a 13-point lead, 62-49, with under two minutes to play before the Mavs stormed back to pull within three, 67-64, with 2.3 seconds left following a David Azore 3-pointer.
 
On the ensuing inbounds pass, Nicolas Elame deflected the ball off a Louisiana player, and after a video review the officials reversed their call on the floor of Ragin' Cajuns basketball to give UTA one final shot at forcing what would have been its seventh overtime game of the season.
 
After UTA lined up to inbound, Louisiana head coach Bob Marlin used his final timeout. Out of that timeout, the Mavs struggled to get the ball inbounded in an awkward position near the corner of the sideline and baseline opposite their bench. The ball eventually found its way into the hands of Azore, but his turnaround contested effort from the baseline was off the mark.
 
An All-Sun Belt First Team selection, Azore finished with a game-high 23 points – his 13th 20+ point performance of the year and 12th since league play began on Dec. 30. The 6-4 graduate student also collected four rebounds and went a perfect 9-9 from the free-throw line in 37 minutes.
 
Patrick Mwamba overcame a 2nd-half ankle scare to pour in 19 points – his 3rd-highest total of the year. The 6-7 forward also collected a team-best and game-high-tying seven rebounds in addition to a career-high-tying four steals as he and Azore accounted for 66 percent of UTA's total points.
 
BOX SCORE NUGGETS

• UTA finishes the season at 11-18, while Louisiana improves to 14-14 and advances to play top-seeded Texas State in the quarterfinals on Saturday.
• Kaodirichi Akobundu-Ehiogu did not miss a shot, going 3-3 from the floor, 1-1 from 3-point range and 1-1 from the charity stripe to register eight points. The 3-pointer was the first of his career and pulled UTA within six, 62-56, with 40 seconds remaining.
• He also grabbed six rebounds and had four blocked shots – incredibly his 11th game of 4+ rejections this season.
• Nicolas Elame scored nine points in a starting role.
• Javon Levi posted four points, four rebounds, five assists and two steals.
• UTA shot just 31.3 percent (20-64) from the floor compared with 45.5 percent (20-44) for Louisiana.
• The Mavs finished with just nine turnovers while forcing the Cajuns into 16, but points off those giveaways were tied at 12.
• Jalen Dalcourt led Louisiana with 16 points, while Greg Williams Jr. was the lone other double-figure scorer at 12.
• UTA secured 13 offensive rebounds to finish with a 16-7 edge in second-chance points.
• The Louisiana bench out-scored UTA's, 24-1.

GAME FLOW
Louisiana jumped out to a quick 10-3 start, and following a 7-0 run the Cajuns took and early double-figure lead at the 11:29 mark, 20-8, prompting a UTA timeout. Louisiana continued its torrid start as the Mavs remained cold, and the Cajuns built leads as large as 17 on two occasions – the last of which came with just over two minutes remaining in the half, 36-19.
 
However, UTA closed the stanza on a furious 8-0 run in under 120 seconds to make it single digits at the break, 36-27, despite connecting at just a 23.3-percent clip (7-30) from the floor while Louisiana went 50 percent (12-24).
 
The Mavs carried that momentum into the 2nd half, scoring the first four points to pull within 36-31, and got as close as four, 38-34, not even four minutes into the stanza. At the midway point of the period, Mwamba knocked down a 3-pointer to pull the Mavs back within five, 46-41, but Louisiana kept UTA scoreless for the next four minutes as the Cajuns re-built a double-figure lead, 51-41, with just over six minutes left, and the 13-point margin with under two minutes left.
 
UTA tried to mount one final surge, clipping off a 7-0 run in 90 seconds to turn that 62-49 deficit into a 62-56 contest following Akobundu-Ehiogu's 3-pointer, and then crawled within the final three-point margin after the Azore triple with 2.3 on the clock.
 
QUOTABLE
"Every game we played against Louisiana this year was similar to that game – we won two close games in the regular season. Today, they played well offensively, and we just couldn't get consecutive stops when we needed to get them in the 2nd half. We made a run, but when we needed big stops we couldn't get them. We played hard like we did all year, and I'm proud of our players. Both DA (Azore) and Pat (Mwamba) played well and gave us a chance to win, but it just wasn't enough."
– UTA Head Coach Greg Young


THIS AND THAT

• With the 23 points, Azore moved into 6th place on the program's all-time scoring list with 1,390 in his 102nd career game.
• Azore also moved into sole possession of 7th place on the program's career free-throw percentage list at 80.9 (425-525).
• Akobundu-Ehiogu leapt into 3rd place all-time on the program's career blocked shot list with now 134 in just 47 games. The all-time record is 168 by Jordan Reves in 124 games.
• This was the 11th game against a Sun Belt team this year that UTA lost by 10 points or less, and 10 of those were by single digits.
• This was UTA's final Sun Belt Tournament game as the Mavs are joining the Western Athletic Conference on July 1. The Mavs went 6-9 in 15 all-time SBC tourney contests.
• The Mavericks won both regular-season matchups against the Ragin' Cajuns: 83-73 in Arlington on Jan. 13 and 80-77 in overtime on Feb. 12 in Lafayette.

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).