Feb. 25, 2009
Box Score
Anthony Miles scored a career high 24 points and the Lamar defense held Texas-Arlington to its worst shooting game of the season in a 75-64 win at the Montagne Center Wednesday night.
Lamar (15-12, 6-7 Southland) held its opponent to under 40 percent for the third-consecutive game while winning its third-in-a-row to keep its SLC Tournament hopes alive. With losses by McNeese State and Texas State, the Cardinals move into seventh place by themselves with three games remaining. The top eight teams qualify for the tournament.
Miles and backcourt mate Brandon McThay each reached the 20-point mark with McThay knocking down three 3-pointers and 9-of-10 free throw for 20 points. He also had five assists and four steals. McThay and Miles both played the entire game and had just four turnovers against a UTA squad that pressed the majority of the game and came in forcing nearly 15 turnovers per game. Lamar finished with 11, but just three in the final 12 minutes.
Jay Brown came off the bench for 14 points, eight rebounds and seven blocked shots.
Lamar led by six at the half, 37-31, and never let UTA get any closer than three points while shooting 59 percent in the second half. The Cardinals limited the Mavericks to 33.3 percent shooting in each period for a total of 33.3 percent, seven percent below their previous season-worst of 40.9 percent.
UTA scored the first three points of the game on a trey by Roge'r Guignard before McThay and Miles scored the next eight points to give Lamar an 8-3 lead five minutes into the game. The Mavericks tied the game four times in the next ten minutes before the Cards closed the half on a 10-4 run.
UTA trimmed the margin to three points twice in the early part of the second half but Lamar outscored the visitors 22-11 over a ten minute stretch to extend its lead to 63-49 with 6:44 to play.
UTA (15-11, 8-5) got 16 points and nine rebounds from Marquez Haynes. Leading scorer Anthony Vereen entered the game averaging 17.2 points per game and finished with 15, but was held to 3-of-10 shooting and got eight points from the free throw line.
Lamar will now hit the road for its next two games, traveling to UTSA (16-10, 7-6) on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi next Wednesday.
