Cold Second Half Dooms UAB as Blazers Drop Road Game to MTSU, 76-61

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - December 1, 2025

An avalanche of second half turnovers and failure to get defensive stops after halftime were too much to overcome for UAB in a 76-61 men’s basketball loss at Middle Tennessee on Monday night.

UAB, which carried a five-game winning streak into the game, didn’t play particularly well in the first half but the Blazers were able to take a 33-32 lead into halftime. Things got away quickly in a second half that included eight of UAB’s 11 turnovers and Middle Tennessee (5-3 ) shooting a crisp 63 percent from the field. Thirteen of Middle Tennessee’s 19 points off turnovers came after halftime.

“I'm really surprised by this,” UAB head coach Andy Kennedy said on his postgame appearance on Blazer Sports Network from Learfield. “I'm disappointed with the way we responded because I thought we'd found ourselves a little bit. And then to me, it reminded me of what happened to us in our two exhibition games. Everything's going smoothly, you know, we're not playing great, but it's a competitive game. And then we have two or three things happen bad. Daniel Rivera's three straight turnovers (and) everything changes. Then all of a sudden, we don't have enough toughness or competitive stamina to have one mistake not go down and lead to two or three.”

Those early turnovers were the catalyst for Middle Tennessee outscoring UAB, 22-8, over the first seven minutes of the second half. That burst allowed Middle Tennessee to turn the one-point halftime deficit into a 54-41 lead. The advantage stayed in double digits until UAB put together a 7-0 run that was capped by Dayjaun Anderson’s 3-pointer. Anderson’s fourth 3-pointer of the night trimmed the deficit to 58-52 with 7:52 remaining. But Middle Tennessee’s Sean Smith hit a 3-pointer after a timeout and UAB (5-3) never threatened again.

“We did not get a stop,” Kennedy said. “End of clock, how many times did we have on a sideline out of bounds with four (seconds) to play? We were going under 55 (Smith), their point guard. He was the guy that they were putting in ball screens for. But we would say, hey, at four seconds, we're switching everything. But for some reason, again, we're just not as aware. We're not as engaged as we need to be. And quite frankly, we're not talented enough to overcome that.”

It also hurt that the team’s three leading scorers – Jacob Meyer, Chance Westry and Ahmad Robinson – were a combined 8-of-28 overall and 2-of-13 on 3-pointers. Meyer was 1-of-5 from the field, missed all three of his 3-points attempts and finished with just four points. It was the second time this season that Meyer, who came in averaging 15.4 points per game, was held under double digits.

The bright spot on a dismal night was the play of Anderson, who shot well from outside the 3-point arc for the first time this season. Anderson was 3-of-28 on 3-pointers coming into Monday. He was 4-of-8 against the Blue Raiders with three of those coming in the first half.

The Blazers now turn the page to another road game on Friday night against a Drake team that is 5-3 heading into a Tuesday night home game against Western Illinois.