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Two words have become the theme of a UAB football season that, for the first time in at least three years, still carries a ton of promise in the early part of the second half of the schedule.

Sometimes the words come with an attached hashtag on social media. Sometimes the words are spoken loudly in the locker room after a win. They may be used on the practice field or during a game. They have become a rallying cry for a team that is working to put three difficult years to rest.

Those two words? “New Blazers.”

Running back Bam McReynolds, who coined the phrase, was asked the importance of those two words.

“I feel like to have that motto, something to say, something that we could fall back on, it gives us a sense of camaraderie,” McReynolds said. “Especially (because) we’ve got a lot of guys that this their first year here. (It’s) a lot of transfers mixed in with a bunch of guys that have been here. They've seen like the ups and downs of the team and I feel like it's very important to have it.”

It wasn’t something that was preceded by much thought. It was something that appeared during a “very high energy competitive practice” during the spring.

“I just remember how UAB (was) in the past,” said McReynolds, a Mobile native who spent three years at South Alabama and last season at Louisiana-Monroe. “I was recruited by UAB and I just knew about previous teams and stuff like that. We kind of use it as a callback to the previous teams. We were having an amazing practice on offense and defense and I think I just said it just to say like this is a new team. Not only this is a new team, but I felt like this is gonna be a very, very high energy team. I feel like we brought that in a lot of the games that we found success in.”

UAB is 4-3 overall heading into Saturday’s American Conference game against South Florida at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. UAB is 2-1 in American Conference play with both of the wins featuring a gritty come-from-behind effort in the second half. For Alex Mortensen’s UAB team, Saturday’s game gives the Blazers an opportunity to remain in a group of teams bundled toward the top of the conference standings.

Obviously there is a lot of work left but, for Lyle Henley what’s happened thus far is a familiar feeling. Henley, the program’s Director of Sports Performance and Assistant head coach, has been part of the program since the return to the field in 2017. He had an integral role in Bill Clark’s successful run from 2017-21 when UAB played in three Conference USA championship games and won two conference championships. He is one of two people in the program, the other being trainer Dan Springer, who has been with the team every year since the 2017 season.

Henley said this team has some similarities to Clark’s teams.

“I see tough defense being played,” Henley said. “Defense being the trademark. I see kids fighting all four quarters plus, never giving up, not looking at the scoreboard as Coach Mort likes to say.  He challenges them to not look at the scoreboard and just play hard, play after play, which is very similar to the mindset we had when we were successful. Yeah, there are a lot of similarities, especially in the physicality I’ve noticed in these kids.”

Henley smiled when the term “New Blazers” was mentioned. He acknowledged it’s an important part of this team’s journey to this point. But he was also a little ahead of the curve when identifying that this team could live up to what the motto means.

“You could see aspects of it early on,” Henley said of a team which largely came to campus for the first time in January. “You could see a core group of kids who stayed here and vowed we were going to turn this thing around. They’ve been here since day one and as these other guys trickled in they didn’t resist against anything the (returning guys) tried to do. The toe-the-line mindset that we had every single day, the attention to detail, the no job is too great, no job is too small (mentality). They didn’t resist any of it. They just jumped in the boat and started rowing in the same direction. So, you could see it. You had hope but now you see it come to fruition.”

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By every measure the UAB men’s basketball team was overmatched on Monday night in Nashville against preseason No. 24 ranked Vanderbilt. After the 97-65 exhibition game loss to the Commodores UAB head coach Andy Kennedy took a moment to look at the big picture.

That big picture included a look back at the 2023 NIT Tournament quarterfinals when UAB beat the Commodores, 67-59.

“I've been in this building now eight times,” Kennedy said after emerging from the locker room following the game. “I’m 5-3 (in regular season or postseason games) in the building as a head coach. But of those eight times, seven of them I was also coaching a Power Five team. I was coaching Ole Miss and then we came in here when I was at Cincinnati and we were in the Big East. The last time the Blazers came in here, you remember, we played pretty good and won the game. That was right on the cusp of the rev share. It’s just such a vast difference in levels (of money support). You see it. I see it. If you think about our first few teams, we didn’t see that. We had the first year with COVID, and then we had our two teams numerically that were the best (in) our second and third year. Then we were able to get Yax, so we were able to keep hanging in there. All I'm saying is the caliber of player, size, strength, speed is evident. To overcome that, boy, you got to be really, really efficient and we were neither. As a result, you get beat by 30.”

There were many problems on this particular night. Perhaps the two most glaring came in rebounding, where UAB was outrebounded by 18, and turnovers. UAB turned the ball over 18 times with Vanderbilt point guard Tyler Tanner getting six steals.

“They speed you up,” Kennedy said. “And then the size and strength and our guys inability to pass and catch.”

Vanderbilt was by far the more physical team on the boards and scoring from inside and also were the better team in transition. The Commodores outscored UAB by 20 points in the paint and 22 points on the fastbreak.

“There weren't many positives other than a learning opportunity that doesn't go on your record,” Kennedy said.

UAB will get another shot at a learning opportunity against a SEC team next Tuesday when the Blazers travel to play Ole Miss at 7:30 p.m. in the second and final exhibition.

Notes from Monday’s game:

*UAB’s starting lineup consisted of Deuce Jones at point guard, Salim London and Justyn Fernandez in the backcourt and Antallah Sandlin-El and Jeremy Elyzee in the frontcourt. Jones led the way with 18 points but he had just one assist and four turnovers. Fernandez, who was selected as a preseason All-American Conference by some, had a difficult UAB debut with three points on 1-of-9 shooting from the field, including 1-of-5 from 3-point range, and four turnovers in nearly 24 minutes.

*All 12 players dressed out for UAB got into the game. Tim Holliday was the player off the bench for the Blazers. Freshman Korie Corbett finished with five points and got the free throw line three times.

“If I'm grading just on the naked eye, I thought Korie Corbett came in there and gave us some fight,” said Kennedy, who earlier in the interview also praised Deuce Jones and Alek Alston. “Everybody else would be hard to even give a passing grade based on expectation. We had some guys that are just not playing the way that I feel like they're capable of playing.”

*TJ Caldwell had a rough outing. Caldwell, who began his college career at Ole Miss, missed all five of his shots with three of those being blocked by Vanderbilt big men. Caldwell will try to rebound against his former school next Tuesday.

*Kennedy on his expectations going into the Vanderbilt game.

“I came into this with my eyes open,” Kennedy said. “I knew we were gonna be overmatched in a number of spaces. At the end of the day, because I was one of those guys way back when, you need your good players to play good. You need the guys that you brought here to be all-league guys to play like all-league guys. We didn't get a lot of that tonight.”

*Matt Mbole struggled in his first Division I game. The 6-foot-11, 275-pound junior college product had two points and six rebounds while foul trouble limited him to about nine minutes on the floor. Antallah Sandlin-El, a 6-foot-9 junior college product, got the start in the frontcourt with Jeremy Elyzee. Sandlin-El had five points and three rebounds.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – About the only good thing that came out of UAB’s visit to Nashville on Monday night was the Blazers found plenty of things to work on to get better.

“As I told the team, I’m disappointed not discouraged,” Andy Kennedy said after his team lost to Vanderbilt 90-57 in an exhibition game at Memorial Gymnasium. “Coming on the road to play a SEC team, a top 25 team in the preseason, you know you are going to have some disadvantages. I was just disappointed in our fight or lack there of out of certain guys. As a coach sometimes, two or three glaring things make you overlook some of the positives. I thought Deuce Jones looked like he belonged out there. I thought Aleks Alston gave us some quality minutes. I thought at times we looked like a coherent basketball team. But you get outrebounded by 18. We have 18 turnovers to only eight assists. You know me, that’s not our M.O. We were throwing the ball all around, missing plays. When you were shooting as poorly as we did, when you have opportunities to make plays you got to make them. Tonight we made very few on both ends.”

It wasn’t a pretty game early on but UAB was hanging around with the Commodores for the most part. Vanderbilt led 15-12 after Alston came off the bench and hit a 3-pointer. But things unraveled at that point. Vanderbilt used its pressure defense and dominated the boards to go on a 25-7 run that gave the Commodores a 40-19. UAB never had a chance afterward.

Jones, the team’s starting point guard, had a solid game despite turning the ball over four times. Jones finished with a team-high 18 points on 5-of-12 shooting from the field, 3-of-4 from outside the 3-point line and 5-of-8 from the line. His four-point play midway through the second half that was followed by a steal and layup gave UAB some life but they couldn’t maintain the momentum.

Jones was the lone Blazer to finish in double figures. Jeremy Elyzee had some good moments in the second half, finishing with nine points and four rebounds. Alston and Elijah Duval each had eight points. As a team, UAB was outrebounded, 48-31, with grabbing 16 offensive rebounds. Vanderbilt scored 24 points off the 18 UAB turnovers and the Commodores won points in the paint (42-20), points off the fastbreak (26-4) and points off the bench (39-18). UAB shot 30 percent from the field and 36.8 percent from 3-point territory.

“Humbling experience,” Kennedy said. “My hope this is humbling for the guys who can do something about it. We’ll get back, evaluate the tape (and) try to figure out who to do what and give this another shot against another SEC opponent (Ole Miss) next week.”

UAB played without KyeRon Lindsay-Martin, who is still fighting to get another year of eligibility. Lindsay-Martin was with the team on Monday but not in uniform.

“Without getting into a lot of details, there’s a court case (where) we’re waiting on a decision as it relates to step one (on the five years to play five seasons),” Kennedy said. “Then there is a NCAA appeal (on a hardship to get him a fifth year) that we have submitted some more information. We’re waiting on that as well.”

While his presence wouldn’t have changed the outcome on Monday, Kennedy said Lindsay-Martin is “vital to us.”

“He’s a 10 and 7 guy that’s been through this,” Kennedy said. “He’s big, he’s strong, he’s been through some wars for us. He’s vital for us.”