University of Texas Arlington Athletics

ARLINGTON – Behind a balanced offensive attack, UT Arlington men's basketball team cruised to a 95-64 win over UT Tyler Saturday inside the College Park Center as part of Homecoming Weekend.
 
UTA raced out to a 16-0 lead just more than six minutes into the contest on the strength of a quartet of 3-pointers and never looked back, leading by as much as 39 en route to a 2-0 start to the 2023-24 season.
 
The Mavericks knocked down 17 3-pointers to tie a single-game program record that had only been reached once before on Dec. 8, 2015, against Bradley.
 
In his collegiate debut, true freshman Kade Douglas was responsible for five of those 3-pointers on his way to a game-high 18 points in only 13 minutes off the bench. He fueled that long-range barrage for the Mavs, who ended the night 17-43 (40%) as part of a larger 34-70 (49%) clip from the floor overall.
 
DaJuan Gordon posted his second-straight double-double in the grad transfer's first year with the Mavs, finishing with 14 points and 11 rebounds while also passing out four assists and nabbing four steals in only 23 minutes of action.
 
Shemar Wilson narrowly missed a double-double of his own with nine points and 10 rebounds as both he and Gordon have now posted 10+ boards in both games this year. Six of Wilson's caroms were on the offensive end, matching the six he also had in Monday's win over Oral Roberts.
 
Freshman Makaih Williams netted 11 points and issues a game-best six assists. Freds Pauls Bagatskis rounded out the quartet of double-figure scorers for UTA with 11 as well – all of which came consecutively in the 1st half after UT Tyler had pulled within eight points.


BOX SCORE NUGGETS

• UTA Starters: Akili Vining, Brandyn Talbot, DaJuan Gordon, Dwayne Koroma, Shemar Wilson.
• All 12 eligible Mavs played – and all appeared in the 1st half – and 11 of those scored at least four points each.
• UTA out-rebounded UT Tyler, 48-33, and the Mavs had 26 assists on 34 made field goals.
• Dwayne Koroma posted six points and five rebounds, Akili Vining added six points, three assists and three rebounds and Aaron Cash matched Vining's point total with six of his own.
• Talbot notched five points and issued five assists, while Sterling Gaston-Chapman also secured five points.
• After not playing in the season opener, Darrius Miles made his first appearance with UTA, logging 13 minutes and recording four points to go along with five rebounds.
• Khalik Gardner led the Patriots with 14 points off the bench as UT Tyler shot just 36% from the floor (23-64) for the game.

QUOTABLE
"I'm proud of how our guys started the game; they really set the tone from the beginning, and that's something we talked about doing. We shared the ball a lot better tonight than we did on Monday, and we got a lot of paint touches and kick-outs. UT Tyler is a good rebounding team – they go hard just like us – but we contained them pretty well. Overall, I'm happy with our performance, but we've got a big test coming up."
– UTA Head Coach KT Turner
 

GAME FLOW
Koroma converted a layup off a feed from Gordon on UTA's first possession of the night, and the Mavs were off and running. The lead blossomed to 18, 20-2, but a 9-0 push by UT Tyler a few minutes later made it a single-digit margin again, 21-13, at the midway point of the half.
 
Then entered the aforementioned Bagatskis, who in a two-minute stretch made three-straight 3-pointers which were followed by a pair of free throws to account for 11-consective points for the Mavs to push the lead back to 15. That cushion eventually swelled to 26 at halftime as UTA took a 50-24 advantage into the locker room on the strength of 52% shooting from the floor (16-31) and a 45% clip from beyond the arc (9-20).
 
In the 2nd half, UTA methodically added to its edge, and it reached its max at 39, 90-51, with four minutes remaining following a Douglas 3-pointer.
 
THIS AND THAT

• The game was an exhibition contest for Division-II UT Tyler, but all stats and the result for UTA are official.
• This is UTA's first 2-0 start to a season since the 2019-20 campaign.
• The Mavs are now 7-0 all-time against UT Tyler.
• UT Tyler assistant coach McKade Marquis played for UTA from 2018-21, appearing in 23 career games.

NEXT UP
UTA will hit the road for an extremely challenging trip next week, taking on a pair of KenPom top-50 ranked teams. First up, UTA will head to New Mexico to face a 1-1 Lobo squad on Nov. 16 that is receiving votes in the national polls.
 
The Mavs will then remain in the southwest before taking on the defending Pac-12 Champion Arizona Wildcats on Nov. 19. Arizona is currently ranked #12 in the nation, but likely will be even higher by the time the Mavs get to Tucson as the Wildcats went into Cameron Indoor Stadium and defeated #2 Duke on Friday night, 78-73.
   
FOLLOW ALONG
For updates, behind-the-scenes photos, videos and more engaging and personal content, follow the men's basketball program on X (formerly Twitter) (@UTAMavsMBB), Instagram (@UTAMavsMBB) and Facebook (/UTAMavsMBB).