GAME NOTES: The Sun Belt Conference Tournament gets underway Thursday night with an opening round matchup between the fifth-seeded Texas-Arlington Mavericks taking on the No. 8 seed Texas State Bobcats at New Orleans Lakefront Arena.

The winner will advance to face No. 4 seed UL Lafayette in Friday's quarterfinal round. UTA swept the regular-season series and has not lost to the Bobcats since February 2011, a span of eight games.

However, the short-handed Mavericks enter having dropped four of their last five games.

The Bobcats, after winning two straight, dropped their final two games at Appalachian State and at ULM by three points each. They are seeking their first-ever SBC Tournament victory since joining the conference in 2013-14 along with UT Arlington, which went 1-1 in this tournament in its debut last season.

Emani Gant, a second-team all-conference guard, leads the way for Texas State with 12.6 points and 7.0 rebounds per tilt, but he is the team's only double- digit scorer on the season. He also managed only two points on 1-of-9 shooting from the floor in the season-ending loss at ULM, also committing four turnovers. Although Texas State has struggled offensively, the team does lead the SBC in fewest points allowed at only 60.0 per game. In addition, Kavin Gilder-Tilbury has gotten hot of late to pick up some of the scoring slack. He is averaging 16.3 points over the last four games while shooting 59 percent from the perimeter (10-of-17).

The Mavs are headlined by Lonnie McClanahan (11.6 ppg) and Greg Gainey (10.0 ppg), although second-leading scorer Johnny Hill (10.1 ppg) underwent season- ending wrist surgery last month. On top of that, Gainey missed the last game of the regular season with an injury, and the team has also been without sophomore guard Drew Charles (7.0 ppg, 2.3 apg) since February when he had season-ending thumb surgery. McClanahan averaged 14.5 points in the two meetings against Texas State and will no doubt be counted on to supply some more offense here. Look for the Mavs to also lean on freshman guard Erick Neal and senior guard Jamel Outler, two players who have both picked up their offensive games in recent weeks.

UTA has dominated this head-to-head series of late but will be missing some key pieces this time around. Still, the Mavericks are the deeper team than the Bobcats, who depend on defensive stops.