Blazers Defeat High Point, 91-74, On Friday Night

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - November 15, 2025

The UAB basketball team walked off Bartow Arena floor on Friday night wearing a smile. That was a big step forward for Andy Kennedy’s team.

“I just saw happy faces in the locker room, which we need,” Kennedy said. “These guys, man, put a lot of pressure (on themselves). As a coach, you walk a fine line, you want to hold them accountable, you want to make sure that you do not give into the standard that is necessary to not only represent the Green and Gold but to win games. When you haven’t had a lot of success, you can see some apprehension. So, it was good to see smiling faces and exhale, so to speak.”

The smiles came after UAB used a crisp and thorough second half performance to knock off previously unbeaten High Point, 91-74, behind a stat-stuffing effort by Chance Westry, a quality job in relief by Quaran McPherson, some long range shooting by Ahmad Robinson and a balanced effort from the rest of the Blazers.

The night didn’t start out well from Westry, who drew a pair of fouls before the game was two minutes old and found himself on the bench for the remainder of the first half. He had to sit and watch while the teams battled back and forth through the first 20 minutes before High Point (3-1) took a 38-35 lead into the break.

McPherson played a big role in keeping the Blazers in the game in the first half. He replaced Westry and contributed nine points, hitting 2 of 5 shots from the field and 5 of 6 from the line, while adding three assists and a rebound in 15 first half minutes. He did this after spending a couple of days working with the scout team in practice. Kennedy said he had a hunch that McPherson would play well on Friday.

“I thought he really got downhill,” Kennedy said after McPherson finished with 11 points. “Think about this, he plays 18 minutes (overall), he gets to the foul line eight times because he was playing through contact. That is a big goal for us to play through contact.”

Westry returned at the start of the second half and began adding the pieces to a night that finished with 22 points, six assists, five rebounds, one assist and one turnover in 20 minutes. He was 6-for-9 from the field and 10-for-13 from the free throw line. He concluded his scoring with 36 seconds left on a fastbreak dunk. He also spent most of the final minute interacting with the Bartow Arena crowd.

“We’re all new here,” said Westry, who had injury-filled stops at Auburn and Syracuse before coming to Birmingham. “It’s just embracing the city. I mean, trying to get everybody together (after) the losses. That’s a big deal to me.”

He was a big part of getting everybody involved in a second half that UAB dominated by shooting 63.3 percent from the field. Westry had 21 of UAB’s 56 second half points but also kept his teammates involved with all six of his assists.

“We changed some offensive actions,” Kennedy said. “We’re trying to get Chance to be more of an initiator.”

UAB closed out the win by outscoring High Point, 22-10, over the final five minutes. And they did it by staying aggressive. Jacob Meyer had eight points, all from the field, during that stretch, and the Blazers were 8-for-10 from the line.

“I’m over there thinking, time-score, time-score,” Kennedy said. “But when you got Jacob Meyer in the middle of the floor (and) Chance, I want them to go and score and see what they can get and they both got it point-blank range. At the end, it was nice to see the ball go in the basket from the free throw line.”

When it was done, UAB (2-2) had five players in double figure scoring, including Robinson and Meyer with 16 points each. Robinson was 4-for-5 on 3-pointers to go with four assists, three rebounds, two steals and a block. Daniel Rivera had 10 points, six rebounds and two blocked shots and the Blazers got workmanlike efforts from Evan Chatman (six points, seven rebounds, two steals, one blocked shot) and KyeRon Lindsay-Martin (six points, three rebounds, three steals).

UAB returns to action on Monday at Bartow Arena against Division III Rhodes College at 6:30 p.m.