Frustration continues for Blazers

By Brent Maze

Published Friday, February 27, 2009

UAB was so close, but they can't get past Memphis. This loss may be the most frustrating of the all of the losses UAB has had to rival Memphis under head coach Mike Davis. By the way, he's 0-for-7 now against the Tigers, which is about as bad as Robert Vaden's 0-for-17 from the field last night. Even with Vaden's worst performance in his life, UAB was still in it. They scrapped, clawed and held a lead with six minutes left, but the bottom fell out again. The Blazers could only manage a couple of baskets down the stretch, and Memphis just kept pounding away. Although Memphis is ranked No. 4, they aren't that good. The Tigers committed almost 20 turnovers against the Blazers. That's a sign of not being fundamentally sound. However, their talented crew makes plays. I don't know if I've ever seen so many four- and five-point plays in one game than I did last night. Those swings will ruin an opposing team's chance to win the game. Whenever UAB got the lead, Memphis had ever answer, and each time, they inched away a little further. Now the question becomes how does UAB respond? They can still make the tournament, but they have no margin for error. They must win out the regular season and get to the conference final for a rematch with Memphis. In the third crack at the Tigers, UAB must put up a better performance than what they did last night. Otherwise, it's the NIT again. The good news is Robert Vaden can't get any worse than he was last night. He must find a way to break out of his funk, and the best way to do that is get to the foul line. He can't force 25- and 30-foot jumpers. He's got to find a way to get lay-ups and get hacked going to the basket. There is still hope for UAB, but it's fading.