GAME NOTES: With their first conference-opening wins since the 2010-11 campaign now in the books, the UAB Blazers turn their attention toward the FAU Owls who visit Bartow Arena on Thursday night.

The Blazers are still four games under .500, but the good news is that the squad managed to snap a three-game slide on Sunday with a 54-49 triumph at Middle Tennessee in the Conference USA opener.

As for the Owls, they've managed to find more success during the early going but it should also be noted that two of their victories came against programs from outside the Division I ranks (Warner and Ave Maria) during the first month of the campaign. More recently, the team had a two-game win streak come to an end with a 62-60 loss to FIU in the conference opener over the weekend.

This is just the third meeting all-time between the programs, with each having once previously. Last season, the first for FAU in Conference USA, the Owls defeated UAB by a score of 82-71 in Florida.

Against the Golden Panthers, FAU led by just three points early and then found itself trailing by double figures not long after. The seesaw battle featured four ties and nine lead changes and unfortunately, the Owls were on the wrong side of those changes at the end of regulation.

Solomon Poole was responsible for a team-best 22 points, shooting 5-of-13 behind the 3-point line, followed by Kelvin Penn and Jackson Trapp with 13 and 11 points, respectively, as the Owls converted only 37.9 percent from the field and 8-of-27 out on the perimeter.

On a team that is generating just 62.8 ppg, which is still better than the 59.4 ppg being allowed by the Owls, Poole leads the scoring effort with 15.6 ppg, although he has seen action in just five of 12 contests. Marquan Botley is hitting barely one-third of his field goal tries, but is still relative to the cause with 12.0 ppg and a team-best 44 assists, some of which have gone to Trapp for his 11.7 ppg.

In a low-scoring affair, the Blazers went from converting 52.2 percent from the field in the first half to only 27.8 percent after intermission and still the visitors pulled away slightly in the final 20 minutes of action. Robert Brown logged 13 points for the Blazers and Hakeem Baxter another 11, but beyond Brown who was 5-of-12 shooting from the field, no one else on the roster had more than a couple of baskets.

Brown, a 40.4 percent shooter from the floor who is just 28.9 percent accurate beyond the arc, is the lone double-digit scorer for the Blazers with his 13.4 ppg. C.J. Washington and his 35.7 percent accuracy from the field, accounts for 9.6 ppg and he is first on the team with 4.8 rpg, but obviously if that is the best that the UAB roster can muster on the glass, it should not come as a surprise that the Blazers are more often than not yielding to opponents in the paint.

Neither one of these teams is going to set the scoreboard on fire, which means every point will count in a very big way. With FAU playing some solid defense to this point, the Blazers might be in serious trouble of heading back to the loss column.