Senior guard Hakeem Baxter dribbles past a Lindenwood player in Thursday night’s victory against the Lions. Photo by Giani MartinJack Ryan - Staff Writerjackryan@uab.edu
The UAB women's and men's basketball teams played exhibition games in a doubleheader against Tuskegee University and Lindenwood University, respectively, on Thursday, Nov. 3.
The women started the evening by defeating Tuskegee 88-67, followed by the men emerging victorious over Lindenwood 92-69.
Women's team
With seven true freshmen and a redshirt freshman, this team is relatively young. This showed during the first quarter, when the Blazers were down 12-9 in the first few minutes.
"They [Tuskegee] were hitting some shots I was surprised about and it tested us," women's basketball Head Coach Randy Norton said. "We got to play everyone on the roster and as everyone knows we are very young."
One of the problems coming out of the gate was rebounding, according to Norton. In the opening of the game, a few rebounds were going off of players or through their hands and landing in Tuskegee's hands for second chances.
Norton attributed this to losing Brittany Windborne, who was top five in the nation last year in rebounds and graduated last spring.
"This year we don't really have that dominate rebounder, so it is going to have to be a collective effort from all 5 players on the floor to get those rebounds," Norton said.
The team, which is being marketed as "Swishingham," shot a mark of 47.1 percent (32-68) while also shooting 41.9 percent (13-31) from 3-point range.
However, Norton concedes that his team's tendency to rely on 3-pointers is not ideal.
"I told the team, I know you are open, but you cannot live and die by the three," Norton said. "I like the 50 percent rule. If you miss a couple of threes, okay. Now, let's get the ball in the post and get a few post touches."
The highlight of the game was a half court 3-point shot by freshman guard Miyah Barnes. With one second left in the game, Barnes heaved the shot from 47 feet away, solidifying the team's win and earning the play a number four spot on Sportscenter's "Top 10" plays.
"It was a very good shot. I was standing right behind her and you could see it was going to go down. Earlier in the game she had another shot like it and it just missed. Miyah will be a very good point guard for us," Norton said.
The women play again on Monday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. against Lane College in Bartow Arena.
Men's team
This team will have one of the toughest non-conference schedules in recent history for a UAB basketball team, with match-ups against Kansas, Auburn, Memphis and Texas. The exhibition game served as a tune-up, and a line-up setter for first year Head Coach Rob Ehsan.
On Thursday night, senior guard Dirk Williams was included in the starting line-up. He went for 22 points and 10-11 shooting, with the one shot he missed being a finger role layup that rolled off of the rim.
"It felt good to be back out there in uniform. The last shot, instead of laying it up I tried a finger role and it just slipped out of my hand," Williams said.
Lindenwood only made seven shots from inside the 3-point arc; however, they were able to make
16 3-point shots going 16-35 from beyond the arc.
"One of our things was to have every shot contested. They hit 16 threes, maybe 10 or 11 were contested," Ehsan said. "The other five they got us turned around. They were smaller than us and did a good job of trying to spread us out. I can't think of a team that has shot 35 threes in a forty minute game."
This team, which has been labeled as "Blockingham," recorded four blocks in Thursday night's game. Three of those came from true freshman guard Javien Williams.
Ehsan made an announcement after the game that junior guard Lewis Sullivan will be taking a redshirt this year. According to Ehsan, he wants to develop Sullivan's talent and set him up to be star player in the last two years of his eligibility.
The men will take the court again in Bartow Arena on Friday, Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. for their first regular season game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
