Late Rally Fuels UAB Victory Over Rice

Saturday, February 10

Bartow Arena

7:00 PM

UAB

16-10, 7-6

Rice

5-20, 2-10

Rice

UAB

Late Rally Fuels UAB Victory Over Rice

2/10/2018 10:11:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score Photo Gallery

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – On the surface, the UAB men's basketball team's 61-56 victory over visiting Rice was far from beautiful. Heck, even one of the heroes of the victory – point guard Nick Norton – called it "a real ugly game, to an extent."

But, calling it completely ugly, would be ignoring some pretty critical things – like huge 3-pointers in the final two minutes by Norton and Nate Darling, a series of gutsy defensive plays by freshman Zack Bryant down the stretch, a courageous effort by a less-than-fully-healthy Chris Cokley and another inspired effort, particularly defensively, by William Lee.

Most of all, outscoring Rice, 17-3, in the final 4:30 helped turn what may have indeed been an ugly evening into an important victory.

"It feels good, gives us momentum, great locker room feeling, confidence boost and just a real feel good moment for all of us," Norton said. "We played down to the last minute and pulled out that win."

UAB (16-10 overall, 7-6 C-USA) needed something good to happen on Saturday night, coming off a home loss to North Texas on Thursday. The Blazers looked crisp early on. Lee scored the game's first six points and the Blazers led, 11-3, at the first media timeout. At that point, Lee had six points, four rebounds and a layup that led to a Cokley fast break layup.

The Blazers controlled most of the first half but never led by more than eight points. Rice's Ako Adams hit a 3-pointer at the first half buzzer to trim UAB's lead to 27-22 at halftime.

Very little went smoothly for the Blazers in the second half. The Owls (5-20 overall, 2-10 C-USA) took a 35-32 lead with 14:34 on a 3-pointer by Robert Martin. UAB answered with a 3-pointer by Darling but Rice steadily took the momentum. A 6-0 Rice run, several minutes later, gave the Owls a 51-42 lead with 5:01 remaining. Two more times, the Owls had the lead back to nine points.

UAB began its final push with less than four minutes left. Cokley's dunk and ensuing free throw cut the lead to 55-49 with 3:37 left and Bryant hit two free throws 38 seconds later. Rice's final points came on a free throw by Adams, pushing the lead back to five points, with 2:38 remaining.

"The last media timeout, Coach Ehsan said it was going to come down to stops," Norton said. "The last four minutes, we can't let them score. Scootie made some unbelievable defensive stops, HaHa, I think, made a few blocks and we just were able to get rebounds and execute on offense".

Norton's 3-pointer from the top of the key cut the deficit to 56-54 with 2:05 left in the game.

"It was a big shot for Nick," UAB head coach Robert Ehsan said. "We need Nick to play and make big shots. I thought he was great defensively down the stretch, there, played really, really hard. He kind of saw an opportunity and stuck it. He's done that in his career. We're going to need that from him in these last five games."

Bryant forced Rice leading scorer Connor Cashaw into a miss on a short jumper but UAB followed with a turnover. Bryant then made another big defensive play, drawing an illegal screen, on the next series. UAB quickly came down and Lee found an open Darling in the right corner. Darling ignored a Rice defender closing quickly and drilled his fourth 3-pointer of the evening to give the Blazers a 57-56 lead with 52.3 seconds remaining.

Bryant drew a charging foul on Cashaw on the next series. Norton appeared to score on a reverse layup but was called for stepping out of bounds. Bryant then forced Cashaw into a contested 15-footer that clanged off the rim and Cokley grabbed the rebound. The ball was knocked loose from Cokley but Norton picked it up and was fouled. He made both free throws to give UAB a 59-56 lead with 6.3 seconds left.

After a turnover, Norton closed the scoring with two more free throws.

"Just the momentum of something like this can carry over," Ehsan said. "When you win a game like that, I think the mental part of it can really help. We've seen it, to be honest, in two of the last three years. Last year, we won a game like this at North Texas. We were down eight with four minutes, it was an ugly game, we pulled it out and it led to three or four games where we just started playing better, just with a little more confidence."

For more information on UAB men's basketball, follow the Blazers on Twitter (@UAB_MBB), Instagram (@UAB_MBB) and Snapchat (@UAB_MBB).