OREM, Utah – A gritty fight for the first 30 minutes by UT Arlington against the WAC's leading team eventually sided the way of Utah Valley as the Wolverines picked up a 78-59 win over the Mavericks Wednesday night inside the UCCU Center.
 
Utah Valley held a slim 47-44 lead at the midway point of the 2nd half, but an 8-0 run by the Wolverines was backed up by another 8-0 stretch a few minutes later as UVU pulled away and clinched at least a share of the WAC regular-season championship.
 
Playing without its leading scorer (10.9 – tied) and rebounder (7.8) in Shemar Wilson for the sixth-straight game due to a hip issue, UTA put forth a feisty, gritty performance for the majority of the night against a team playing for a title, but 62-percent shooting (16-26) in the 2nd half by UVU was too much for the Mavs to overcome.
 
Kyron Gibson led UTA for the 11th time this year in the scoring column with 16 points, and he was joined in double figures by Marion Humphrey (10) and Dario Domingos (10).
 
Without Wilson – the nation's 9th-leading offensive rebounder – UTA was overwhelmed by UVU's size as the Wolverines finished with a 43-28 rebounding advantage. That -15 differential on the glass for the Mavs is by far their worst of the season.
 
BOX SCORE NUGGETS

• With the loss, UTA drops to 11-19 overall and 6-11 in the WAC, while Utah Valley improves to 23-7 and 14-3.
• Domingos scored in double figures for just the third time this season while logging only 15 minutes.
• Humphrey – who also registered three steals – has now reached double-digit scoring three times in the last four games, and the one game he didn't he tallied nine.
• Gibson added three rebounds and two assists.
• Chendall Weaver finished with seven points, three assists and two rebounds.
• Brandyn Talbot netted eight points and passed out a pair of assists.
• Pedro Castro had four points and five rebounds, while Aaron Cash had four points and four rebounds.
• The Mavs connected at only a 33-percent clip (11-33) from the field in the 2nd half en route to 37 percent for the game (24-65). UVU finished at 50 percent (28-56) for the night.
• The top shot-blocking team in the nation at 6.4 per contest, UVU totaled nine on Wednesday.
• Justin Harmon (17), Le'Tre Darthard (16) and Aziz Bandaogo (10) finished as the double-figure scorers for UVU; Bandaogo added a game-best 11 rebounds for his league-leading 15th double-double.
• UTA utilized its 14th different starting lineup of the season and seventh in the past 10 games: Gibson, Weaver, Castro, Cash and Domingos.

QUOTABLE
"We played well for about 30 minutes, but guys got in some early foul trouble to start the 2nd half and we just weren't tough enough tonight against a good team was that playing to cut the nets down. I thought we fought hard, but without Shemar we knew we'd need some other guys to step up and control their bigs – and for the most part we weren't able to do that."
– UTA Interim Head Coach Royce Johnson
 

GAME FLOW
Making just his second start of the season, Domingos was unfazed early as UTA went to him down low on both its first to possessions, and the sophomore eclipsed his season average of 3.5 just 75 seconds into the game. That aggression carried over to the rest of the Mavs, and on a fastbreak layup from Gibson at the 12:30 mark UTA took a 15-14 lead.
 
That push woke up the Wolverines, who clipped off a 7-0 response and held the Mavs scoreless for four minutes while building a 21-15 lead with 8:30 remaining before another transition finish by UTA ended that drought. It was short-lived, however, as UVU extended to its largest lead of the 1st half at seven, 26-19, with just over six minutes left in the stanza.
 
But – playing with a renewed approach over the past few weeks – UTA again fought back, and on a contested finish where he hung in the air against a 6-9 defender, Weaver tied the contest at 28-all at 1:55 juncture. Then, just inside of a minute to halftime, Talbot drilled his first 3-pointer to put the visitors in front, 31-28, before Utah Valley took a 32-31 lead into the break.
 
The hosts were the beneficiaries of several calls early in the 2nd half as UTA was whistled for six fouls in the first 2:25, and Utah Valley shot bonus free throws just five minutes into period which helped establish a 37-31 edge. But, again UTA punched back and pulled within one, 37-36, after a Humphrey steal and finish at the end.
 
A one-possession game coming out of the under-12 timeout, 47-44, quickly turned into a nine-point contest, 53-44, at the 10:53 mark after UVU converted consecutive 3-pointers, and the advantage swelled to 11, 55-44, inside of 10 minutes to play before UVU pulled away even more down the stretch.
 
THIS AND THAT

• Wilson is tied for 4th in the WAC with five of UTA's six double-doubles this season, and he ranks 9th nationally by averaging 3.6 offensive rebounds per game. In the first meeting with Utah Valley back in January, he recorded a 13-point, 14-rebound double-double as part of a narrow 72-64 loss to the Wolverines.
• UTA has now alternated losses and wins for the last nine games: L, W, L, W, L, W, L, W, L.
• Despite the loss, UTA is now 6-6 in its last 12 league games after beginning WAC play 0-5 – and four of those six losses have been by 10 points or less.
• UTA was in search of its fourth NET Quad 2 win of the season (at San Francisco, versus Sam Houston and at Stephen F. Austin). Those three are already a single-season program record (previous: two).
• The WAC is currently ranked by KenPom as the 11th-best conference (out of 32) in the nation.

NEXT UP
The road trip continues to Seattle U on Friday, Mar. 3, for a 9 p.m. Central (7 local Pacific) tipoff in the regular-season finale. The Mavs will then remain in the Pacific timezone and fly directly to Las Vegas to begin preparations for the WAC Tournament, which for UTA will commence with a First Round matchup on Tuesday, Mar. 7.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
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