Charles scores career-high 28 in UTA's 105-89 win over BYU (Mar 15, 2017)

By AP
Published

PROVO, Utah (AP) Drew Charles made five 3-pointers and scored a career-high 28 points and UT Arlington beat BYU 105-89 on Wednesday night in a first-round NIT game.

The sixth-seeded Mavericks (26-8), regular-season champions of the Sun Belt Conference, will host seventh-seeded Akron on Monday in the second round. The Zips beat Houston 78-75 on Wednesday,

Kaelon Wilson and Kevin Hervey added 20 points each for UTA, which led 62-55 at halftime after shooting 63 percent and finished at 55 percent in reaching their second-highest point total this season.

BYU, which never led, shot 60 percent in the first half but couldn't keep pace in the final 20 minutes when it shot 27 percent. Eric Mika led the Cougars (22-12) with 29 points and Nick Emery, who made four 3-pointers, added 24.

UTA scored 32 points off 20 BYU turnovers and outscored the Cougars 50-26 in the paint.

Leading by nine, the Mavericks went on a 17-3 run to lead by 23 with 2:43 to go.