The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
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Louisiana Tech
UAB Blows Past League-Leader LA Tech, 80-60
2/5/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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By Steve Irvine, UABSports.com
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- UAB head coach Jerod Haase glanced down at the stat sheet following his team's impressive 80-60 Conference USA victory over Louisiana Tech on Thursday night and proclaimed that turnovers were the "real difference in the game."
That's not surprising when Louisiana Tech is on the floor. The Bulldogs (17-6 overall, 8-2 C-USA) win a lot of games by turning turnovers into points. This time, though, it was UAB's ability to avoid those turnovers - especially in the final 20 minutes - that led to the lopsided win over the C-USA preseason favorites. UAB (12-11, 8-2) finished with 13 turnovers but only three came after halftime against a Louisiana Tech team that forces 16.5 turnovers per game.
"I think it was being strong with the ball and coming to the passes," Norton said of the difference in the two halves. "Once we broke that press, it was easy to find baskets and we just had to execute on the defensive end and get stops."
Norton struggled when the teams met earlier this season, turning the ball over four times in 15 minutes. This time, he calmly handled the pressure and finished with just one turnover in 27 minutes. However, the key to beating the pressure of the relentless Bulldogs was sharing the ball handling responsibility with Denzell Watts, Hakeem Baxter, Robert Brown and others.
"The first meeting we kind of fell back and just let Nick handle the ball a lot and it didn't work out for us," said Baxter. "We knew we had to step up."
No one was more aggressive, particularly in the first 20 minutes, than Baxter. He consistently went straight at the pressure, scoring 12 of his 15 points in the first half. He also attacked the glass, grabbing 10 rebounds, and added two assists and a steal.
"I thought he was fantastic on both ends of the floor," said Haase, whose team moves into a second place tie with the Bulldogs. "Offensively, his ability to get to the rim and penetrate against their pressure I think is extremely important. He played extremely hard and to have nine defensive rebounds shows he's willing to stick his nose in there and go chase the basketball."
UAB built a 44-37 lead at halftime 10-0 run over a three-minute span late in the half that began with a Tosin Mehinti layup with 4:09 left and concluded with a Mehinti follow shot with 55.2 seconds remaining.
The Blazers scored the first five points of the second half before Louisiana Tech chipped away at the deficit. The Bulldogs pulled within two - at 54-52 - with 13:40 left. UAB's answer was a 13-3 run over the next eight minutes that featured eight points by Chris Cokley.
"To this point in the season, that hasn't been a defining characteristic of our team," Haase said of the first and second half scoring runs. " Where I envision this team and this program, moving forward, hopefully we will be a team where you can start talking about runs that break open games."
It helped Thursday that the Blazers spread out the scoring production. Norton had a team-high 16 points, including four 3-pointers, Baxter had 15 points, Cokley and Mehinti each had 12 points and Brown finished with 11 points.
"It's just great balance I felt," Brown said. "Everyone is unselfish and just looking for the best shot and not taking the first available shot."
UAB also clamped down on defense, allowing the Bulldogs to hit 33.8 percent from the field overall and 25.8 in the second half and winning the battle of the boards, 49-34.
"That's a very good basketball team we beat today," Haase said. "Before too long, the way we're making progress, we'll be considered a pretty good basketball team as well. I think we're continuing to make steps every single game."
UAB hosts Southern Miss on Saturday at 2 p.m. CT in the annual Bartow Classic game.
