UAB Opens AAC Slate Against North Texas

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - December 31, 2024

There was a myriad of reasons that the UAB men’s basketball team’s unexpected struggle through the non-conference schedule. Somewhere near the top of the list of struggles was the Blazers inability to convert on what head coach Andy Kennedy calls “clean looks.”

Kennedy is in his 18th season as a college head coach. In each of those seasons, he has charted clean looks during games.

“Clean looks, again for our first time viewers, means the right guy taking the right shot for him, typically a perimeter shot,” Kennedy recently said. “Doesn’t have to be a 3-pointer, but it’s just got to be clean, a good look for him.”

Kennedy said the goal is to be around 55 percent and last year’s team finished in the neighborhood of 49 percent, marking the first time he had a team fail to reach 50 percent. This year’s team, Kennedy said, will enter Tuesday’s American Athletic Conference opener at North Texas shooting around 35 percent on clean looks.

UAB, the preseason favorite to win The American, enters conference play with a 7-6 record. In UAB’s six losses, the “Blazers shot 41.9 overall from the field and 27.3 percent from 3-point range. In the seven victories, UAB shot 51.2 percent from the field and 33.9 percent from outside the 3-point arc. The only time UAB shot over 40 percent on 3-pointers was in a 95-66 win over Prairie View when the Blazers were 10 of 23 (43.5 percent).

“We have to start making shots (or) we’re just going to put an incredible pressure on the rest of us,” Kennedy said.

UAB opens conference play at 3 p.m. today against one of the stingiest defensive teams in The American. Getting clean looks against the Mean Green is never easy, which puts a premium on hitting those shots. North Texas allows a conference low 56.5 points and 41.4 shots per game. By contrast, UAB takes 67.3 shots and averages 86 points per game.  The 76 points scored by High Point against North Texas marked the only time this season that the Mean Green allowed more than 70 points in a game. UAB has scored less than 80 points only three times this season.

But, even with the gaudy numbers, things don’t come easily when UAB is struggling hit open shots.

North Texas plays a deliberate style on offense but the Mean Green (9-3) is efficient on the offensive end. They are third in The American in 3-point shooting percent at 35.2 percent and have one more 3-pointer than UAB (87-86) on 29 less attempts. Atin Wright, a 6-foot-1 transfer from Drake, leads the team in scoring with 12.8 points per game and 3-pointers (29). Wright had 20 points, including a pair of 3-pointers, for Drake in last season’s overtime loss at UAB.

For the Blazers, Efrem “Butta” Johnson, Tyren Moore and Alejandro Vasquez need to lead the way from the outside. But UAB is at its best when it wins the points in the paint with Yaxel Lendeborg, Christian Coleman and Bradley Ezewiro cleaning up inside.