Guest abovetherim Posted November 15, 2007 Report Posted November 15, 2007 Junior guard Brandon Long poured in 14 of his 19 points in the first half and SLC Player of the Week Jermaine Griffin had 22 points and 11 rebounds to lead UT Arlington to a 102-72 victory over Texas Southern at Texas Hall Wednesday night. UT Arlington (2-0) stays unbeaten through two games for the sixth time since 1959. The Mavs gained a measure of redemption after losing to the Tigers 98-81 last season in Houston. Griffin had his second straight double-double of the season while Long and Rog'er Guignard had 19 points each. Anthony Vereen chipped in 16 points. Texas Southern (1-1) was led by Sollie Norwood with 21 points and Johnathan Frazier added 13. "I thought our defense was the difference tonight," said UT Arlington Head Men's Basketball Coach Scott Cross said after the win. "We wanted a little revenge after the beat us last year and I thought we really made an effort to shut them down and hold them to one shot. You look at the final rebounding totals and it shows we hustled and beat them to the boards." The Mavs outrebounded Texas Southern, 51-24, including 14 offensive rebounds. UTA also used their inside muscle to outscore TSU 38-18 in the paint. UT Arlington never trailed after the first minute of the game. A three-point play by Griffin gave the Mavs' a 3-2 lead and UT Arlington never looked back. Long canned three, 3-pointers and scored 11 of the team's first 22 points and UTA lead 22-16 after Long's third trey of the game with 12:07 left in the first half. With UTA leading 26-19, Texas Southern score the next five points on a 3-pointer by Norwood and a jumper by Kevin Abanobi to trim the lead to 26-24 with 7:39 remaining. UTA scored six straight points to make it 32-24 after a Vereen lay up with 6:19 in the half. The lead swelled to 12, 45-33, after a Posey jumper with 1:09 left in the half. UT Arlington will take their first road trip of the year when they play at Arkansas-Little Rock on Saturday at 2 p.m. The Mavericks return to Texas Hall when they host North Texas Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. GAME NOTES: The win was the eighth straight at Texas Hall, matching the second longest win streak since 1959. The longest win streak is 12 straight from Jan. 10, 2004 to Dec. 22, 2004.... UTA is looking for its first 3-0 start since 1992-93 and just the fourth all-time... Griffin had his 12th career double-double. He needs 144 points to reach 1,000 points in his career.
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