MOBILE, Ala. – UT Arlington hit 15 3-pointers and Brian Warren scored 18 points in a 75-57 win over the University of South Alabama men's basketball team Thursday night at the Mitchell Center.

The Mavericks (14-15, 10-6 Sun Belt) went 15 for 26 from distance on the night, including 8 for 12 in the second half alone. Warren converted 4 of his 7 attempts, Edric Dennis was 4 for 8 and Jabari Narcis made all three shots from deep.

USA (13-15, 6-9) led for most of the first eight minutes of the contest before a 16-2 run – including 11 in a row – by UTA resulted in a 26-15 lead. The Mavs led by as many as 14 in the first half and went into halftime up 11.

The Jaguars rallied to as close as five at the 12:51 mark of the second half before a 17-6 run put the Mavericks up double-digits for good.

GAME FACTS
- Juniors Josh Ajayi and Trhae Mitchell combined for all of South Alabama's first 11 points and sophomore John Pettway added a layup for a 13-10 Jaguar lead
- UT Arlington scored the next 11 points – six from Dennis – and after a Mitchell layup, Narcis and David Azore scored the next five points for a 26-15 advantage
- A 7-1 scoring burst stretched UTA's lead out to 14 with 4:11 left and a triple from Dennis put the Mavs up 36-25 at the break
- Mitchell scored the first seven USA points of the second half, junior Herb McGee poured in the next seven and a triple from Ajayi made it a 47-42 contest with 12:51 to play
- TiAndre Jackson-Young countered with two 3s and a jumper in an 8-2 burst over 1:34 to go back up 11
- Sophomore R.J. Kelly made a layup on USA's next possession, then the Jags missed their next four shots from the floor as the Mavericks went on a 9-2 run to pull away
- Ajayi finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds for his 10th double-double of the year, and Mitchell tallied 17 points
- Dennis totaled 15 points off the bench for UTA and Narcis poured in 11

NOTES
- UT Arlington has won the last five meetings in the series, four by double-digits
- The Mavericks shot 62.5 percent from the floor and 66.7 percent from 3-point land in the second half, and finished at 56.0 percent overall for the game and 57.7 percent from deep
- Ajayi also led the team in assists and steals (3 each)
- Ajayi is the second Jaguar this season to lead the team outright in points, rebounds and assists in the same game
- The Jaguars are 1-11 this season (1-6 Sun Belt) when being outshot by their opponent
- The 15 3-pointers and .577 3-point percentage allowed are the second-highest by a USA opponent this season (Auburn, 18; New Orleans, .583)

THEY SAID IT
Head Coach Richie Riley
Opening statement: "We're not ready for that type of game. I told our team that. This is brutal honesty. I really feel bad for some of our guys because they haven't learned to grasp, over years of playing basketball, what this game is about. The reason that I love coaching basketball and the reason that basketball is the best game and sport in the world to me is because of the competitiveness. It's five guys, five-on-five. You go out there and at the end of 40 minutes there's a winner and there's a loser. That's all that this is about to me: winning and losing. We haven't grasped that. We come out and we're worried about other stuff like whether our shot goes in or whether we think we're getting fouled. At the end of the day, you either win or you lose. We got whipped tonight. They're a much better team than us. They're tougher than us. They play harder than us. That's why we lost the game. We're obviously shorthanded, but we have guys that are out there playing minutes who are incapable of getting to that level of how hard we have to play to win that game. I give UT Arlington credit. They played so hard. They were so physical and made us so uncomfortable every single possession of that game because of the physicality and urgency that they play with. We couldn't match that. We've got guys out there playing high minutes who cannot match that."

On the slip after cutting the deficit to five in the second half: "We couldn't put enough stops together. We finally embraced a little bit of their defensive physicality and scored the ball a little better, but then we couldn't get stops. I'm ashamed as the head coach that our team is not tougher than that. We just got physically and mentally out-toughed for 40 minutes. That's what it came down to. We cut it to five and got a little bit of momentum and then they came back and punched back. When they punched back we didn't handle it very well, like we do from time to time. I'll be honest – we don't handle these teams well. There's a reason that Little Rock has beaten us twice. They have five (Sun Belt) wins; two of them are against us. There's a reason why: they're physical. UT Arlington is physical. Certain lineups and certain personnel that we have out there for long segments of time don't play well against that. I'm sure it's on everybody's scouting report. It's not a secret at this stage of the year. We've got to find a way to embrace it because down the stretch we're not going to see anything different. Saturday we host Texas State. They are really physical defensively. They're going to be patient and make us guard for long periods of time just like UT Arlington did and hope to force us to break, which we did a lot tonight. It's going to be a similar game Saturday. That's kind of the blueprint. We've got to embrace playing against physicality and we've got to be able to raise our level up enough to be able to beat the good teams in this league."

On UT Arlington's 3-point efficiency: "We were very soft defensively, outside of the first four minutes of the game. I thought we came out with the right approach and then we realized how hard it was going to be and we didn't really want any part of that. We allowed them in the first half to make open 3s and it gave them confidence. When you start seeing the ball go in early, especially on the road, it gives you confidence. When you've got that lead late and you've made some shots and feel good about yourself, you can raise up and hit some tough contested ones. We saw them do that."

On UT Arlington's program: "I give them all the credit in the world. They've got some competitive dudes. I watched Brian Warren in junior college. He's a good player, but the best thing about him is that he wants to win. They've got a whole team full of those dudes. Coach (Scott) Cross was there before. The guys they inherited from them know how to win. (UTA head coach) Chris Ogden has come in and done a tremendous job running six or seven guys of his own and some winning dudes who embrace that blue-collar work ethic. That's what their program is about and that's how they play. They play as hard and as physical as any team we've played all year, and that's why they've won 10 games in league play."

UP NEXT
South Alabama closes out its home schedule Saturday night against league-leading Texas State at 7 p.m.

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/WeAreSouth_JAGS. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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