The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Green Beats Gold In Blazers' Scrimmage
11/4/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 4, 2004
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Ronell Taylor scored 28 points to lead five Green squad players in double-figures Thursday night as the Green beat the Gold, 114-108, in UAB's annual Green-Gold Scrimmage at Bartow Arena. Donell Taylor added 25 and Arkansas transfer Wen Mukubu had 22 on nine-of-11 shooting for the winning squad.
Demario Eddins scored 28 points to lead the Gold club, which game back from down 60-46 at the break to make the contest closer at the end. Eddins was 10-for-15 from the field and had seven rebounds, three assists and three steals in the effort.
"The guys got to go out there and have fun tonight," UAB head coach Mike Anderson said. "It also gave us coaches some things to look at and fine tune as we get ready for the season. The fun part's over now, though. It's time to go to work."
Green led by as many as 15 in the first half after a Mukubu layup made it 57-42 with 2:04 to go before intermission. Back-to-back scores by Marques Lewis cut the Green lead to just six at 65-59 with 16:23 to play and a Richard Jones fastbreak layup with 15:20 made it a four-point game at 67-63. The Green buckled down, however, rolling off three straight baskets, including a Ronell Taylor jumper at the 13:18 mark of the second which stretched the lead to 10 at 75-65.
While the Gold team would cut it to seven on six occasions afterward, a Reed Davis trifecta in the waning seconds was all the Gold could do to make the final margin less.
The winning Green team blistered the nets for 70.1% shooting from the floor (47-for-67). Junior guard Marvett McDonald added 19 in the winning effort behind four-of-seven shooting from downtown. McDonald and Mukubu each dished out five assists for the Green.
Freshman Frank Holmes added 16 points for the gold squad. Lewis (17), Richard Jones (14), Squeaky Johnson (13) and Derrick Broom (12) were double-digit scorers for the Gold. Johnson, who led the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio last season dished out a game-high eight assits and had four steals in the contest.
The teams were coached by sports personalities Mike Raita, sports director of WBMA, ABC 33/40, and Birmingham Post-Herald Columnist and WJOX sports talk show host Ray Melick, with Melick getting the "W" as coach of the Green team.
Anderson's Blazers hit the court for the season's first exhibition game next Thursday, Nov. 11 in Bartow Arena against Montevallo. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m. (CT).
