It's looking more and more like the rest of the Western Athletic Conference will be glad to see the UTA Mavericks gone after this season. They're not very gracious guests.
The Mavericks continue to be perfect on the road in WAC play after winning their farthest road conference game in history, 66-47 at San Jose State.
The win got the Mavs back to above .500 in conference play to complete the first half of the WAC season.
The Mavs basically did to the San Jose Spartans what has happened to them too many times recently at the College Park Center. San Jose shot less than 22 percent for the game, including under 17 percent for the first half.
"We won it with our defense," coach Scott Cross said. "We rebounded well and did a better job on the boards as the game went on."
Greg Gainey had a career-high 17 points in his new role as a starter, but many others contributed. The Mavs got 23 first-half points from the bench to lead 38-19 at the half, including 11 from Kevin Butler.
UTA shot 48 percent for that first half, including 45 percent from three-point range. By contrast, San Jose didn't hit a single long-rang shot in the first half.
That allowed the Mavs to put the game basically on cruse control in the second half. The Spartans could only play to a 28-28 tie for the second half.
Even the scoreboard struggled to work at times. It showed the final score as 166-147 at the end.
The Mavericks will now have a week off before heading to Ruston to face Louisiana Tech, hoping to avenge the first-place Bulldogs' 55-52 win in Arlington back on Jan. 5.
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