Kennedy Left Disappointed In First Look At UAB In Game Action

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - October 24, 2025

Andy Kennedy didn’t need a scoreboard to assess his disappointment in his UAB basketball team’s first chance at playing an opponent. Now the Bartow Arena scoreboard, which read Vanderbilt 89, UAB 67 at the conclusion of Thursday night’s scrimmage, certainly told the story. But that was just a start.

“I just see a lot of things that I was really disappointed in,” Kennedy said. “Vanderbilt is a SEC team, they went to the NCAA Tournament  last year. They're going to be bigger, faster, stronger. I'm not as dumb as I look. I knew that. I knew what they spent on their roster. I know what we spent on ours. It's like, I won't get into that.”

He did get into what was most bothersome.

“I didn't like our fight,” Kennedy continued. “I thought, again, when you play a bigger, faster, stronger guys and you engage, you're going to probably be on your heels a little bit. I thought we stayed on our heels the whole time. We couldn't get them off of us to get on the attack. I just thought, it's not what we do. We can't be successful with this team playing that game.”

Final statistics weren’t provided to the media after the game but it was obvious that UAB had trouble finishing at rim at one end and stopping the Commodores at the rim on the other end.

“It's one thing to be small, it's another thing to play small, we played small,” Kennedy said. “So that means we have got to extend things into the full court. We got to play faster, we got to be tighter in our actions. We've got to be more in gaps. That's one thing that we've really been preaching, is getting in gaps. We don't have rim protection.  Let's don't let them go by us.”

Vanderbilt started to pull away a bit late in the first half but Ahmad Robinson’s bucket cut the Commodore lead to 41-35 at halftime. However, it got away quickly early in the second half, largely because they had trouble with physical Vanderbilt guard Duke Miles, who had no trouble getting to the rim. Miles finished with 20 points.

“I was really disappointed in our inability to stay connected defensively and then our edge,” Kennedy said. “The game ends up being 22 but could have easily been 10 or 12 if we could have just finished through contact, make a layup (or) make a free throw.”

There was some promise, though. Robinson looked good early, scoring nine points, but struggled with turnovers as the game wore on. He finished with a team-high 14 points. UAB had three other double figure scorers with Chance Westry scoring 11 points and Ari Gooch and Salim London each adding 10 points.

“I thought Ahmad had spurts today,” Kennedy said. “I thought he just got a little loose with the basketball. You can see Chance Westry’s talent. But guys, Chance Westry, this is his fourth year in college. He’s played 12 games. So I've got to get it out of him. I'm saying that for myself. It's almost redundant. I'm telling myself in a dark room this, I've got to be patient. He's got talent. We've got to get it out of him.”

Kennedy praised Gooch and London, who were each playing their first Division I game.

“I think he's one of our most stable guys,” Kennedy said of London, who was a starter on three state championship teams at Hoover. “He has a trust, he's built a trust. Every single day, man, he's trying to get better. He's gonna work, he's gonna try to get better. He'll probably grow as much from this game as anybody on our team because now he has an understanding of what it's like to play against high major players.”

Gooch hit a pair of 3-pointers in the first half but his effort was what stood out.

“He does it every day, that's who he is,” Kennedy said. “He's a ball getter. He's the only guy that really got 50-50 balls for us. He's a great cutter, plays with great energy. First time he's ever played against a Division I player. He's a junior college kid, one year, so it was his first Division I game. I thought he gave him some good minutes.”

UAB plays one more exhibition game with Western Kentucky coming to Bartow Arena next Wednesday. But the focus now is to learn from Thursday night’s loss to Vanderbilt.

“Hopefully, physically, we're not outmanned to the level that we were tonight,” Kennedy said. “I want us to improve on the things that we saw. I want us to play with more of an edge, play with more force. We've got a saying this year, it's on my wristband. Number one, I want us to play with force. Well, I thought Vandy played with more force than us, everybody could see that. I want us to do everything with authority and I didn't think we did that in not understanding our roles, missing assignments, being a step short, being very very hesitant. And, then, ultimately I want us to respond to the circumstances, positive or negative. I didn't think our response was great. So, force, authority response (FAR), if you can do those things,  again not to be corny, but we'll go far.”