UTA on brink of cracking national Top 25

One by one, the milestones are beginning to accumulate in the process of making the current men’s basketball season at UT-Arlington the most special in school history.

The Mavericks have recorded 15 consecutive victories, the longest winning string in school history, and built up a 19-5 record for the season. UTA is 11-0 in Southland Conference Western Division play and has already clinched a spot in the upcoming SLC postseason tournament.

The team has played in front of two raucous crowds at the new College Park Center, attracting more attendance in two home dates there than they had played before in the nine previous home games at Texas Hall combined.

And now, the Mavericks are beginning to get national recognition. In this week’s ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, UTA actually received its first vote of the season, making it the 40th ranked team in the nation.

To their credit, however, UTA coach Scott Cross and his players are taking all of this success in stride. They’ve never been a team that has taken good fortune for granted, and they aren’t about to start now.

“Our goal this year was not to win 15 straight games,” forward LaMarcus Reed said after leading UTA to a 73-53 win over Texas State last Saturday. “Our goal was to win a championship and that’s what we’re working towards. And if we keep doing what we’re doing, we feel like we have a pretty good chance of accomplishing what we set out to do at the beginning of the year.”

Wednesday night, UTA has an opportunity to win its 20th game of the season in Nacogdoches against Stephen F. Austin. The UTA-SFA rivalry has really increased in heat over the last five years.

“If we’re fortunate enough to win on Wednesday, we’ve extended (the streak) by one game and done something that has never been done in the history of the program,” Cross said. “Every time we win a game, we’re doing something special, so the guys don’t need to put pressure on themselves. They just need to go out there and play basketball.”

Cross said if his squad is fortunate enough to finish as the conference’s top seed, then they will set another goal, which will be to win the conference tournament and advance to the NCAA Tournament for the second time. The Mavericks made their only appearance in the national tournament during Cross’ second year as head coach in 2008.

After the SFA game on Wednesday, UTA will travel to Ogden, Utah, for a nationally televised tilt against Weber State. The matchup is part of the ESPN Bracket-busters series, pitting teams of comparable strengths against each other in intersectional contests.

The game should give Cross and his players a taste of what the NCAA Tournament would feel like, if they should advance. It will also be another opportunity for them to work on improving their rebounding (which they did against Texas State) and do a better job of protecting the ball.

“We turned the ball over a lot (against Texas State), but we made up for it with our rebounding and our defense,” Cross said. “Our field goal percentage defense was phenomenal. We do want to keep our turnovers under 15 and force the opposition to have more than us.

“That’s the thing about this team – if we’re sliding in one area, we pick it up in another areas. Our guys really step up and do the little things it takes to win games.”

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