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Mavs win semester’s last home game

Written by Stephen Peters

Tuesday, 25 November 2008 09:03 PM

The Shorthorn: Andrew Buckley

In the last home game until mid-January, the men’s basketball team got back to winning with a 99-67 victory over the UT-Tyler Patriots on Tuesday night at Texas Hall.

The Mavericks (3-1) opened the game on 8-of-8 shooting including five 3-pointers, stretching the lead to 23-11 — a lead the Mavs would not relinquish throughout. Junior guard Marquez Haynes’ jumper with 13:26 left in the first half was UTA’s first missed shot of the night.

Haynes finished with 17 points — his second straight of 15 or more.

“My preparation for the game, I think, has been a big thing for how I’ve played,” he said. “I still am really not playing how I’ve expected to play here. It’s a learning process and I’m just trying to get better each and every game.”

In the first two home games, Haynes dawned a headband but has since stopped wearing it.

“I guess it symbolizes trying to get back to the basics,” he said.

As for the game, the Mavericks had five players score in double figures, led by junior guard Brandon Long with 19. Long was 7-of-12 shooting from the floor and 4-of-8 from beyond the arc.

The Patriots never led the Mavs get too far ahead in the first half, chipping away at the 12-point lead to within four with 8:22 left in the half.

But behind a Long free-throw and three consecutive layups, UTA extended it’s lead to 11 and finished the half ahead 50-35.

Head coach Scott Cross said he was unimpressed with the team’s defense in the first half, though, allowing UT-Tyler’s senior guard Anthony Reese to score almost half of his team’s points with 17.

“The first half was a disaster,” Cross said. “We didn’t play nearly as good defensively as I expected from our guys. We shot the ball fairly well, but our defense was nonexistent.”

In the second half, the Mavericks limited Reese to just two points and forced the Patriots to commit nine turnovers in the half.

“It was a UTA team I could identify with,” Cross said about his team’s defensive play in the second half.

Tyler would not any closer than 10 with 14:11 left to play in the game as the Mavericks used full-court pressure to frustrate the Patriots.

Transition buckets and solid free-throw shooting (85 percent) allowed the Mavs to pull away and win easily in the last home game before a 10-game road trip spanning longer than a month and a half.

Cross described this game as a ‘must-win’ considering the upcoming schedule after losing on the road to Eastern Washington this past Saturday. “It’s extremely important,” he said.

“Wins are hard to come by especially with our schedule. We needed to get some confidence going.”

The Mavericks, in the fast-paced game, committed just seven turnovers while recording 20 assist on 46 made buckets. Long said, even though the game seemed fast, the team did well in their shot selection and not forcing the ball too much.

“It was fast-paced, but we weren’t taking bad shots,” he said. “We were taking good shots and making the right passes.”

The Mavericks travel to Houston for a 7:05 p.m. matchup with Houston Baptist on Saturday.

This is the first meeting between the two schools since 1982. UTA leads the series 11-6 but is 4-4 all-time in games played in Houston.
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