NIT First Round Recap - UAB vs Coastal Carolina

(2) UAB 65, (7) Coastal Carolina 49

Two teams that harbored Big Dance dreams until the final weekends of their respective seasons squared off at UAB's Bartow Arena on Tuesday night.  Unfortunately for the visitors from the state of South Carolina, the trip to parts southwest didn't go quite the way they would've liked it.  Sparked by Elijah Milsap's 12 points, the homestanding Blazers sprinted out to a 40-18 halftime lead.  Mike Davis's side, no longer the run-and-gun outfit that became March Madness darlings in 2004 and 2005, survived a sloppy and low-scoring second half by forcing just enough Chanticleer misfires to survive and - chorus, get ready! - Advance.

The Big Picture: In his post-game chat, UAB coach Mike Davis made it clear that he wanted his Blazers to do one thing on Tuesday night, and that was be physical (as in the “Manny Pacquiao pounding Joshua Clottey” sense and not the “Olivia Newton John in leotard” sense).  Davis said the following about UAB's game plan going into Tuesday night:

"After watching film of them, the teams they beat weren't real big and physical.  That's what we tried to do. We wanted to take them out of their rhythm with ball screens. The game was probably over in the first half."

Given the Chanticleers’ semi-rally in the second half, we aren't sure that Davis is entirely correct about the game being over, but his team definitely got the message.  The Blazers pounded the Chants on the boards, romping in the rebounding battle, 41-25.  UAB also snared 16 offensive caroms, and scored 30 of its 65 points in the paint. 

The Good:   Given their desire to turn this game into a backyard wrestling match, it isn't all that surprising that UAB's performance on the offensive end was so ineffectual that Pete Carrill would be in tears were he to somehow come across an eight-track or tape of this game.  That being said, fortune favors the brave, but also the opportunistic, and UAB certainly was opportunistic on Tuesday night.  In a game where they shot an underwhelming 42.3 % from the field, the Blazers converted 18 Chanticleer turnovers into 23 points.  They turned 16 offensive rebounds into 12 second-chance points.  Opportunism of this sort will win some games in March.

The Bad:   Certainly, Tom Izzo isn't about to head down south to Conway, South Carolina to see how Chanticleer coach Cliff Ellis is conducting rebounding drills, but, still, Coastal Carolina was Clottey-esque in the way it got pushed around on the boards Tuesday night.  The Chants got pounded 23-12 on the boards in the first half, and the beating continued in the second half, as UAB had an 18-6 rebounding advantage.

The Ugly:  Let's make the argument for this game having been played at Coastal Carolina's cozy Kimbel Arena rather than UAB's Bartow Arena, which was at maybe 50 % of capacity (8,500).  After all, the Chanticleers did win their conference, and we tend to think that a jam-packed and raucous crowd of 1,000 at Kimbel would've brought the noise a lot better than the 4,000 at Bartow did on Tuesday.

What's Next?

Beating UAB at Bartow might have been a bridge too far for Coastal Carolina, but we still think Cliff Ellis heads into this off-season a tad disappointed in the way his team competed tonight.  UAB coach Mike Davis isn't worried about the off-season right now.  Instead, he's got to get his team ready for a North Carolina State side that will present more of a physical challenge than Coastal Carolina did.