OREM, Utah – A tie game with less than 10 minutes remaining quickly turned in favor of UT Arlington as the Mavericks dominated the final stretch en route to a fifth-straight win, 78-65, at Utah Valley Saturday afternoon.
 
Two days removed from ruining Seattle U's Senior Night with a 20-point win, the Mavs did the same exact thing to UVU, highlighted by a league-leading 12th double-double from DaJuan Gordon and a 20-point effort from Phillip Russell.
 
With the game tied at 52-all with nine minutes remaining, the Mavs blitzed through the closing stretch by outscoring UVU, 26-13. Up by seven, 68-61, with three minutes left, Russell scored nine-straight points – capped by a game-icing pull-up jumper from the elbow – to dispatch of a Wolverines' side that had moved within one game in the loss column of UTA coming into the contest.
 
In a matchup of teams that had combined to win nine-straight games entering the day, it was UTA extending its streak to five in a row while snapping Utah Valley's five-game winning stretch behind Gordon's 17 points and 13 rebounds.
 
Shemar Wilson added 13 points and pulled down eight rebounds to go along with five assists as the senior forward – who has seven double-doubles on the campaign – missed his seventh other potential double-double by either one or two points or rebounds.
 
With the victory, UTA moves into sole possession of 3rd place in the WAC standings at 12-7, half a game ahead of idle Seattle U (11-7). However, despite sweeping the season series from SU, the Mavs (-0.20 points entering the game) will likely still occupy the 4th position in the league's resume-seeding system (SU: 3rd, 0.63 points) when the new rankings which determine WAC Tournament seeds are released Sunday.
 
The contest featured the WAC's best 3-point shooting team in UTA and the league's best 3-point defending team in UVU, it was the Mavs getting the better of the clash as they shot 46% (10-22) from beyond the arc – the 11th time this year they have made 10+ 3s in a game after registering only 10 such games in the previous two seasons combined.


BOX SCORE NUGGETS

• The win improves UTA to 17-13 overall and 12-7 in the WAC, while the loss drops the Utah Valley to 14-15 and 9-9, respectively.
• Aaron Cash posted nine points to go along with five rebounds and two blocks.
• Makaih Williams (6), Brandyn Talbot (5), Sterling Gaston-Chapman (3), Akili Vining (3) and Fabio Basili (2) wrapped up the UTA scoring as the Mavs shot 42% (23-55) from the floor. Vining added a game-most three steals as well.
• After connecting at just 55% (6-11) from the free throw line in the 1st half, UTA went 89% (16-18) in the 2nd half.
• After registering a season-low seven turnovers at SU on Thursday, the Mavs tied their 2nd fewest giveaways of the year on Saturday with 11.
• All 13 of Gordon's rebounds were on the defensive end, which are the 5th most in single-game program history (record: 14 on four occasions). The 6-5 guard also issued four assists and shot an efficient 5-7 from the floor and 6-8 from the charity stripe.
• Drake Allen led a trio of UVU double-figure scorers with 18; Trevin Dorius (12) and Tanner Toolson (10) were the others.
• UVU shot 42% (25-60) from the floor, but just 53% (9-17) from the free throw line.
• The Mavs used the same starting lineup as they did last time out: Russell, Williams, Gordon, Cash and Wilson. The group is now a perfect 3-0 on the year with an average winning margin of 18 points.

QUOTABLE
"We didn't play out best, but it was another game we grinded out and found a way to win. And we learn more from these games than we do being up by a lot and winning easily. We didn't have a lot of energy and took some bad shots – especially in the 1st half – but at the end of the day we'll take any win we can get and hopefully we'll learn from it."
– UTA Head Coach KT Turner
 

GAME FLOW
In the first meeting this year, UTA didn't allow the Wolverines to score until the 12:30 mark, but on Thursday they knocked down a 3-pointer on their first possession 20 seconds into the contest. But the Mavs responded with three of their own triples in the first five minutes to open up a 13-9 lead.
 
UVU re-established an 18-16 lead at the midway point of the frame during a 3+ minute scoring drought for UTA, which Cash finally put an end to with back-to-back 3-pointers. Basili hit a pair of free throws after that, and the 8-0 run gave the Mavs a 24-18 edge which grew to seven, 27-20, after a baseline 3 from Gordon at the 6:30 mark.
 
UVU eventually cut that deficit down to two, 29-27, but a 9-2 run over the final 4+ minutes of the stanza propelled the Mavs to their largest lead of the opening half at the break, 38-29, thanks to a Talbot 3-pointer.
 
That triple was the eighth of the half for UTA as the Mavs went 8-17 (47%) from beyond the arc compared with just 2-8 (34%) by UVU. The Wolverines, instead, got 21 of their points either in the paint (16) or at the free throw line (five).
 
Similar to Thursday at SU, expectedly UVU came out of the locker room energized and opened the 2nd half on a 11-0 run to take a 41-38 lead as the Mavs missed their first seven shots of the period.
 
Gordon finally put an end to that with an and-1 finish more than five minutes into the half, and shortly later the Mavs put together a 7-0 spurt in less than a minute to turn a 43-41 deficit into a 48-43 edge at the 13-minute juncture.
 
However, the Wolverines responded with their own 7-0 stretch to re-solidify a two-point lead, 50-48, and the game was tied at 52-all before the Mavs took over down the stretch.
 
THIS AND THAT

• The Mavs are now 8-2 over their last 10 games, with their only losses in that stretch coming by a combined three points.
• UTA has now also won five of its last six on the road after starting the season 0-9.
• The 17 wins are UTA's most since going 17-16 in 2018-19; the Mavs reached the Sun Belt Conference Tournament Final that year.
• Turner has now become the only first-year head coach in program history to win 17 regular-season games; he is currently tied with Chris Ogden's 17 (one of which came in the conference tournament in 2018-19) for the most total victories.
• All 17 of UTA's wins this year have come when it scores at least 70 points.
• Combined with an 83-69 win in January, UTA swept the season series from the defending WAC Regular Season Champions and NIT semifinalist Wolverines.
• This is now the 17th time UTA has scored 75+ points against D-I competition; the Mavs accomplished that feat just four times all of last year (regular and postseason).
• Entering the final week of the season relative to the WAC's seeding system, if UTA wins its final game versus California Baptist and SU drops both contests at Abilene Christian and Tarleton State, the Mavs will almost certainly earn the #3 seed in the WAC Tournament. Even if SU splits its Texas swing, the Mavs could potentially get the #3 seed, but they need to defeat CBU.

NEXT UP
UTA closes out its regular season with that home tilt against California Baptist next Thursday, Mar. 7, at 7 p.m. Prior to the contest, the Mavs will honor a quarter of graduates: Shemar Wilson, DaJuan Gordon, Aaron Cash and Akili Vining.
 
The WAC Tournament runs from Mar. 13-16 at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas; if the Mavs get a 1st-round bye they will begin action on Mar. 14 in the quarterfinals.
   
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