The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
Southern Miss
UAB Defeats Southern Miss, 57-56
1/20/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 20, 2010
UAB-Southern Miss box score (PDF) 
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - Aaron Johnson hit a jump shot with 6 seconds left to give UAB a 57-56 win over Southern Mississippi on Wednesday night. With the victory, the Blazers improve to 16-2 overall (4-0 C-USA), which matches the best start to a season in program history.
"I've been saying this for a long time, that every game from here on is not going to be pretty," UAB head coach Mike Davis said. "It's not going to be a game where you walk out saying 'wow, UAB executed offensively and they cut hard' but you will walk out saying that this is a team that plays really hard. We are going to be known as a team that fights until the very end. We didn't play well tonight, but we fought."
For a second consecutive contest, the Blazers had to use a huge second-half run to win the game in the closing seconds. UAB trailed by as many as 14 points, 36-22, with 15:06 remaining in the contest. The Blazers fought back and cut the lead to 42-40 at the 8:41 mark. However, the Golden Eagles went on a 9-2 run to stretch the lead back to nine points, 51-42, with 4:42 remaining.
The Blazers trailed 53-47 with 2:30 left before going on an 8-2 run to tie it. Jamarr Sanders, who already had a 3-pointer during the spurt, capped it on a 3 with 1:10 left to knot it at 55-55.
R.L. Horton hit his first free throw to put the Golden Eagles (10-8, 0-4) ahead by one, but missed his second. Junior guard Elijah Millsap came down with the rebound with 32 seconds left, and the Blazers called a timeout with 19 seconds to go, setting up Johnson's shot.
"I wanted to find Jamarr (Sanders) to come off a screen so he could come in the lane and hit his pull-up because he was hot down the stretch," Johnson said. "But he passed me the ball, and I just told Howard to come set a screen for me, and I knew I was going to be open."
Before the final shot, UAB hadn't led since 16:39 left in the first half.
Johnson finished the contest with 12 points and five assists. Millsap scored 14 points for the Blazers, while Sanders had 13 and George Drake added 10. The UAB starting five scored all 57 points on the night.
Gary Flowers had 25 points and 10 rebounds for the Golden Eagles.
The Blazers will next be in action on Saturday when they travel to Huntington, W.Va. to battle Marshall in a showdown between two of the three unbeaten teams in the league. Tipoff is slated for 6 p.m. CT (7 p.m. ET) and can be heard on the ISP Blazers Radio Network, 107.7 FM WUHT. The contest will also be televised live on CSS.
