Freshman guard Javien Williams. Photo from UABsports.comTrinity Dix - Staff Writertri915@uab.edu
The men’s basketball team defeated in-state foe Alabama A&M Bulldogs (0-6) 75-45 at home on Tuesday, Nov. 29, advancing to 4-3 overall.
In the beginning of both the first and second half, the defense was slow to start, allowing the Bulldogs to score enough points to tie up the game for over 2:27.
“First half, I think we got off to a slow start on the defensive team,” said junior forward William “HaHa” Lee, who scored a total of 15 points in the game. “But we picked it up a little bit, and the second half, the same thing. We got off to a slow start, but at the end of the day, we still held them at 45 points.”
During halftime, senior forward Tosin Mehinti agreed that Head Coach Rob Ehsan emphasized that the team play defensively.
“He told us in the locker room just go in there, play hard, and they’ll play defense,” Mehinti said. “I’ll tell you right now, coach is more worried about us playing hard at a time. And, well, when the other group went in, it just felt like there wasn’t a lot of energy out there, so they just put us in there.”
Mehinti scored a season high of 13 points in Tuesday night's game. He also ended the game with five rebounds, three blocked shots and two steals.
In the second half, Ehsan substituted all five of his starters with Tyler Madison, Nate Darling, Denzell Watts, Javien Williams and Mehinti less than four minutes into the half. Darling, a freshman from Nova Scotia, scored two 3-pointers.
"I told the guys in the locker room at halftime that, defensively, I wanted to see a great start. I wanted to see a couple of stops in a row," Ehsan said. "And we came out, and they got a couple of scores in a row, and I kind of warned them, so we kind of went with the five guys more to just kind of send a message that every game, we need to start halves and begin with games a little better on the defensive end, and that was kind of how that came about.”
Toward the end of the latter half, the Blazers widened the score margin, leading by as much as 31 points for over three minutes.
The play of the game came from Lee, who scored on a slam dunk, assisted by senior guard Hakeem Baxter. In addition to his team-high 15 points, Tuesday night also gave Lee seven rebounds and three blocked shots.
The Blazers look to defeat the Auburn Tigers in a rematch on Saturday, Dec. 3. The game tips off at 7:30 p.m. in Bartow Arena.
