BIRMINGHAM, AL—ODU junior Dimitri Batten and red-shirt freshman Ambrose Mosley combined for 34 points, but Chad Frazier scored 27 and CJ Washington added 19 to lead the Blazers of UAB to a 75-66 C-USA victory over the Monarchs Thursday night at Bartow Arena.
ODU is now 10-11 overall and 4-2 in Conference USA, while UAB is 14-6 overall and 3-3 in C-USA.
Batten finished with 18 for the Monarchs while Mosley scored a career high 16 points. Mosley hit 4-of-7 from beyond the arc tonight. His previous point high was 12 against St. Louis in the Cancun Challenge.
The Blazers led by as much as 18 points (44-26), with 15:30 left in the game, but the Monarchs rallied to cut the lead to nine and then eight late in the game. Keenan Palmore’s layup off a Denzel Taylor steal made it 66-57 with 3:59 left in the game.
UAB pushed it to 13 after two Rod Rucker free throws for a 72-59 lead with 2:11 left. ODU then made one more rally to cut it to eight, 72-64 with 1:06 remaining after a Dimitri Batten trey, but could get no closer.
The Monarchs shot .348 (24-69) from the field, while the Blazers shot .491 (28-57). UAB who came into the game leading the nation in rebound margin of plus 11 only outboarded the Monarchs, 46-41. Every Monarch who played had atleast two rebounds on the night. Dimitri Batten and Richard Ross led ODU with seven rebounds each, while Keenan Palmore added six. UAB was led by CJ Washington with eight rebounds.
The Monarchs forced UAB into 19 turnovers and scored 25 points off them. Ross and Batten each had four of the Monarchs season high 14 steals. ODU committed only 11 tonight.
The Monarchs return to action on Saturday evening at 6 p.m. ET when they travel to Middle Tennessee. The contest can be seen live on Cox channel 114 in Hampton Roads.