Finally Playing with Force, UAB Smashes MVSU 106-55

Chance Westry scored 23 and Jacob Meyer scored 22 as the Blazers breezed past the worst team in America in their season opener.

“Authority” has been the word of the early season for UAB.

During its exhibition losses to Vanderbilt and Western Kentucky, the Green and Gold didn’t play with enough of it. Against the Commodores, Andy Kennedy’s squad was severely outmuscled in the paint, leading the UAB coach to criticize the Blazers’ hustle. A week later, Kennedy watched his team again lose the physicality battle as it failed to overcome the Hilltoppers.

“There’s going to be bodies in your way,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to play through them in an effective manner. The best teams that I’ve ever had can do it at about at least a minimum of 55% rate. This team is under 50%, woefully.”

Monday night, UAB’s rate must have been over 70%. Although their opponent will go down as one of the weakest squads in the recent history of Division I basketball, the Blazers finally did what their coach expected of them, scoring 48 paint points to Mississippi Valley State’s 18, forcing 26 turnovers to the Delta Devils’ eight, and hauling in 49 rebounds to the visitors’ 34. Albeit against far stronger foes, UAB spent its previous two season openers shaking off rust. Not this time: the Blazers drilled MVSU for 1.25 points per possession while holding the Delta Devils to .65 PPP of their own.

Even Kennedy, for whom the matchup prompted a remarkable level of apprehension, was reassured by the Green and Gold’s performance, saying he was “really pleased with the way we approached the game.”

“I know Mississippi Valley had their struggles last year, but they only returned a couple of guys, you know, and I’ve seen our struggles,” Kennedy said. “So I just wanted us to play good.”

And play good they did. UAB started strong, riding steals and fast-break buckets to a 16-4 lead, but responses from Michael James and Tyrone Iroghama kept the visitors within striking distance; that was, until KyeRon Lindsay-Martin made the play of the game. As the Blazers broke the Delta Devils’ three-quarter-court press, Ari Gooch found the cutting forward on the baseline, who disregarded flagrant contact from Iroghama to throw down a highlight-reel slam.

“Oh my gosh, that boy just pushed right through him … ” Chance Westry said, recalling his reaction to the play. “It just gets us going, you know, seeing that impact. Like, ‘Dang, alright, bet, let’s all try,’ you know? ‘Let’s all try to push through and get to that rim.’”

In exchange for a hard-earned two points, Lindsay-Martin received a bloody nose and a technical foul, a trade he’d probably make again; sans the tech, Kennedy sure would. Although the UAB coach dinged the forward for missing a few bunnies in the second half, his dunk was emblematic of the effort the Blazers displayed throughout their wire-to-wire victory.

That effort started with the UAB backcourt. It’s no secret that the Blazers’ talented guard unit will likely determine whether the team contends for a conference title, and the group couldn’t have possibly gotten off to a better start. Jacob Meyer paced the Green and Gold with 16 first-half points, orchestrating a game-breaking 32-6 run that was sparked by Lindsay-Martin’s slam; Ahmad Robinson posted 14 points and seven assists; Westry led the Blazers in scoring, putting up 23 points in just 20 minutes. No member of the trio recorded a turnover.

Although Westry acknowledged UAB’s exhibition slate “didn’t go well,” he credited the Vanderbilt and Western Kentucky games with bringing the Blazers together, familiarizing the team’s many newcomers with each other’s playing styles. After the WKU loss, Kennedy complained that his squad wasn’t “good at anything” and didn’t “really have an identity”; Monday night, a more synchronized UAB team pushed back on its coach’s assertion.

“[The win] shows potential with the team,” Westry said. “I mean, we still got a lot to grow from. It shows a lot, you know. We had some big leads, some fast break points — we had 28 fast break points — so it shows that we can get out and run, and [48] points in the paint shows that we can play for force.”

The Blazers bullied the Delta Devils in transition, forcing 26 turnovers — their most in a single game since 2021 — that led to 40 UAB points. Supremely effective in space was Meyer, who topped the Green and Gold in fast break points with 12. Kennedy, a man who has described himself as pessimistic to a degree that is “not healthy,” found nits to pick with Meyer’s game, but he also lauded the guard’s quickness and straight-line speed.

“I think Jacob is our most aggressive scorer,” Kennedy said. “I think that’s pretty clear. I think he still leaves fruit on the vine, so to speak, and that he shoots with his right hand more than any left-hander I’ve ever seen in my life. Anybody got David Copperfield’s number? I wonder if he could maybe hypnotize him. Is Copperfield still doing his thing? This dude thinks he’s right-handed, but at our level, I think he’s going to really be dynamic. He can really get by. He’s explosive off that dribble.”

Overall, UAB dominated almost every statistical category. It held MVSU to an eye-watering eFG% of 33.6, turned the Delta Devils over on nearly 30% of their possessions, and pulled down offensive rebounds on 38.9% of missed shots compared to its opponent’s mark of 11.8%. The game was slightly more competitive in the second half as Kennedy emptied much of his bench in an effort to flesh out the Blazers’ rotations. Despite the constant substitutions, Kennedy felt as though his team remained focused for the majority of the game.

“Before viewing the tape, I thought in a 40 minute game, about 75% of the time we were pretty locked in,” Kennedy said. “When the score gets like this — and I guess it ends up over 50, that’s a big number — sometimes you’re going to have a little bit of a lapse in attention to detail, and I’m playing everybody. I tried to play everybody that I could play, and with that you’re going to disrupt your rhythm as well.”

The only aspect of UAB’s performance Kennedy blasted was its struggles from the free throw line: Westry went 4-8, Robinson went 2-4, Evan Chatman went 2-5, and Daniel Rivera went 0-2. The Blazers were inefficient from the charity stripe during the preseason, and that didn’t change last night.

“Chance has a monster game, and he misses four free throws as a guard,” Kennedy said. “It’s inexcusable. Evan Chatman’s too good of a shooter to be missing free throws like this. Daniel’s always struggled with it in his career, but he’s a guy that plays physical, and he’s going to draw contact. We need to make free throws at a much more efficient rate. We end up at 62% on the game, and that’s not to our standard.”

“We’ll continue to focus on it and continue to try to get the reps necessary to get these guys comfortable at the line.”

The Blazers’ next test — N.C. State on the road Friday — will be a little more complicated. NCSU is KenPom’s 31st-ranked team and just missed being included in the preseason AP Poll. Will Wade made his Wolfpack debut last night, leading his team to a 114-66 thrashing of overmatched N.C. Central in front of an announced crowd of 19,119 at Raleigh’s Lenovo Center; with a late-night tipoff of 8 PM CT, this weekend’s environment will likely be the most hostile UAB faces all year.

Kennedy is well-aware of the challenges Wade’s squad will pose — although the former McNeese State coach wasn’t on the sideline when the Cowboys crushed the Blazers 81-60 in 2023, serving a suspension stemming from violations he committed at LSU, he was the architect of the team that dealt UAB one of its worst home losses of the decade.

Nevertheless, Kennedy believes the early-season nature of the contest could give the Blazers a chance.

“We don’t have that much head-to-head experience, but I do know the way in which his teams play,” Kennedy said. “I’m sure he’s familiar with the way in which ours play. Both of us are kind of going at it with a limited knowledge base because we’re still trying to figure out our own teams. I know that we’re going to have to play really good to give ourselves a chance. They’re a team that’s predicted to do big things this year, and we look forward to the opportunity.”

To end his presser, Kennedy hit a familiar note.

“We’re going to have to play with a lot of authority.”