The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB Closes Two-Game Road Swing At Marshall On Saturday
1/30/2009 12:00:00β―AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 30, 2009
UAB-Marshall Game Notes | Gametracker | Watch
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The UAB men's basketball team will travel to Huntington, W.Va. to take on the Marshall Thundering Herd on Saturday night 7 p.m. ET (6 p.m. CT). The contest will be televised live on CSS and can also be heard on the Blazers ISP Radio Network, 107.7 FM WUHT beginning with the pregame show at 5:30 p.m. CT.
UAB enters its matchup at Marshall with a 13-8 overall mark and a 3-3 record in Conference USA play following a heartbreaking 75-74 defeat at Tulsa on Wednesday. Senior guard Paul Delaney III led UAB with 21 points on 9-of-11 shooting from the floor in the losing effort.
Senior guard/forward Robert Vaden, a Wooden Award and Naismith Trophy candidate and Preseason C-USA Player of the Year recipient, currently leads the team in scoring (18.7 ppg) and is second in rebounding (5.4 rpg). Vaden has scored at least 20 points in 12 of UAB's 21 games on the season.
Delaney, who has scored double figures in all but one game he has played this season, is second on the team with 16.7 ppg, to go along with 4.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.8 steals per game. Additionally, Delaney also leads the team in field goal percentage, connecting on 120-of-199 shots from the floor this season (.603). He currently is second in the league in field goal percentage and is seventh in scoring.
Senior forward Lawrence Kinnard leads the team with 9.0 rebounds a game and is third on the team in scoring with 14.5 points per game. He recently recorded his Conference USA-leading eighth double-double of the season and 15th of his career in the win over UL-Lafayette on Jan. 19. He enters the Marshall game third in the league in rebounding and is 14th in scoring.
Additionally, senior guard Channing Toney and junior forward Howard Crawford have played tremendously in UAB's last four contests. Over that span, Crawford is contributing 14.8 points and 6.5 rebounds a contest, while Toney is collecting 13.0 points and 5.5 rebounds a game.
As a team, the Blazers are shooting 46.1 percent from the floor and 33.6 percent from beyond the arc this season. UAB is also averaging 6.9 three-point makes per game and is outscoring opponents by 6.6 points a game (72.9-66.3), despite having one of the toughest schedules in the nation (strength of schedule is No. 32 according to CBSSportsline.com rankings (as of Jan. 28).
Marshall comes into Saturday night's contest with a 9-11 overall mark and a 2-4 record in league play following an 84-79 loss at Southern Miss on Tuesday. Freshman guard Damier Pitts led the Herd with 18 points and five assists, while freshman guard Shaquille Johnson had 16 in the losing effort.
Pitts enters Saturday's contest as Marshall's leading scorer with 10.9 points a game. The Charlotte, N.C. native also leads the squad in assists (3.95), steals (1.1) and free throw shooting (84 percent). Sophomore forward Tyler Wilkerson is the only other Herd player to average double-figure scoring with 10.6 points and is also leading the team in rebounds (6.0).
Senior guard Markel Humphrey, who was a third-team C-USA honoree last season, is third on the team in scoring with 9.8 points, while also collecting 4.4 boards per contest which is second on the squad. Johnson and junior guard Chris Lutz average 9.6 and 9.5 points respectively.
As a team, the Thundering Herd shoots 44.3 percent from the floor and 33.7 percent from beyond the arc on the year. Marshall is also outrebounding the opposition by 1.6 rebounds a game (32.8-31.2) and leads the league in rebounding defense. However, Marshall is allowing opponents to shoot 47.2 percent from the floor and 40.7 percent from deep. Marshall is only getting outscored by 0.2 points a game (71.6-71.4) and averages 6.4 treys a game.
UAB and Marshall will meet for the 10th time in series history, with the Blazers owning a slim 5-4 lead in the previous nine contests. UAB won the last meeting, 74-55 in Birmingham, on Feb. 2, 2008, but Marshall has won three of the last five games. Two of the three Marshall victories over the five-game stretch have come on its home floor, with the other coming in the opening round of the 2007 C-USA Tournament. The Blazers come into Saturday's game with a 2-2 mark in four games at Marshall, but are 0-2 in the last two meetings at the Cam Henderson Center.
