A lot of shiny new pieces in unfamiliar places

Much like the renovated arena they got their first look at the day before the game, the UAB women's basketball team has a lot of shiny new pieces in unfamiliar places. It may take a few games before they know their way around.

UAB opened the 2026-27 season Wednesday night with a 77-67 win over Fisk inside a Bartow Arena that barely resembles the building Randy Norton has coached in for 13 years. Nine of his 12 players are new. The scoreboards are in a different spots. The seats are different. The court design is different now, too.

Norton was asked after the game whether the new pieces — on the court and surrounding it — might need time to come together.

"It will," he said.

Fisk came ready to play.

The Bulldogs are an NAIA program from Nashville with roughly 1,000 students and only seven available players. They are also an HBCU institution founded in 1866 whose alumni include W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells and John Lewis. And their 5-foot-7 sophomore guard from Cleveland, Ari Branch, played Wednesday night like she belonged in any building in any conference.

Branch scored 22 points in the first half on a mix of pull-up jumpers and three-pointers, went 5-for-8 from deep and finished with 29 points.

"Coming into the game, she was a 17% three-point shooter career," Norton said. "And filled it up today. When she starts hitting threes, she's a hard person to guard."

Fisk led for most of the first quarter, pushing ahead 21-15 behind Branch and freshman Casey McKinney, who came off the bench from Linden, Ala., and scored 11 points in 26 minutes. UAB settled for contested threes and couldn't find a rhythm in the half court. The Blazers trailed by as many as six and went into halftime down 41-40, fortunate to be that close.

"I didn't like the way we came out," Norton said. "We've had a bad week of practice, and you're gonna play games the way you practice."

He drew a contrast with the Alabama exhibition.

"The week leading up to go up and play Alabama when we beat them by 15, we had a great week of practice 'cause they were all fired up to go play Alabama," Norton said. "And today, they didn't prepare and weren't ready to go."

Norton challenged his team at halftime. He challenged one player in particular.

Ashley Garner, the 6-2 junior forward Norton recruited from the College of Southern Idaho and has called the most physical post player of his UAB tenure, had one rebound at the break.

"I really challenged her personally," Norton said.

Garner finished with a game-high 15 rebounds — seven offensive — and nine points in 23 minutes. She grabbed more boards than UAB's next two rebounders combined.

The Blazers opened the third quarter with a different posture. Viktoria Ranisavljevic, the sophomore point guard who transferred from Penn State, scored on a layup off a Fisk turnover on the first possession. Garner started crashing the glass. UAB pushed the lead to 52-45 on consecutive Hailey Jackson three-pointers — both assisted by Ranisavljevic — and carried a 57-55 lead into the fourth.

The fourth quarter was decisive. Peyton Bradley, the Louisville transfer Norton said "shoots lights out from the three," drilled a 27-footer to push the lead to 62-58. Nya Burns scored on a layup off a Ranisavljevic assist. Garner converted a layup off a Bradley pass. Ranisavljevic scored on another layup. Then Eleecia Carter — one of only three returning players and the team's most experienced voice — hit a 28-foot three off a Jackson assist to make it 71-58 with 5:24 remaining. The game was over.

UAB outscored Fisk 20-12 in the fourth quarter.

Jackson was the headline.

The junior forward from Hutchinson Community College, a first-team JUCO All-American, scored 29 points on 12-of-17 shooting with three three-pointers.

"She really attacks the rim, and she's a very capable three-point shooter," Norton said. "She's been like that in all three scrimmages."

Ranisavljevic ran the offense with eight assists against three turnovers in 37 minutes. Bradley scored 14, going 4-for-12 from three. Burns, the true freshman from Knoxville, added 10 points off the bench in 24 minutes.

UAB shot 10-for-34 from three-point range — 29%. Norton didn't like that shot selection for this team.

"Our best bet on offense is when we attack and get in the paint, and then if we can score, great. If we can't, then spray it," Norton said. "I just felt like we settled a little bit too much offensively from the perimeter."

Norton built this roster specifically to move away from the perimeter-heavy identity that defined last year's 11-19 team. The 2025-26 Blazers led the American in three-point percentage and three-point field goals per game but couldn't rebound or score inside. Norton went to the transfer portal and junior college market to fix it — Garner, Dannebauer and Heeren — players who, as Norton said in the preseason, "won't ever shoot a three."

The settling is a habit that will take time to break. But when UAB did get to the paint, the numbers told the story: 38 points in the paint to Fisk's 28, 18 fast-break points to Fisk's 3, 17 points off turnovers to Fisk's 6.

"Defend, defend and rebound," Norton said when asked what needs to improve before Saturday, when the team goes to Mobile to face South Alabama at 1 p.m. "Defend and rebound, and get into the paint."

Fisk's coach has a connection to this building.

Victoria Crawford is a Birmingham native who led the state of Alabama in scoring at 27 points per game in high school, earned a scholarship to Memphis, was named CUSA Sixth Player of the Year in 2004 and played professionally overseas for five years. She came home to coach — at Miles College, at Lawson State Community College, at Lincoln College in Illinois until the school closed — and landed at Fisk in May 2022, where she broke the program's wins record with 39 victories in her first two seasons and led the Bulldogs to their first NAIA postseason appearance in 2023-24.

Sitting courtside Wednesday night, cheering on his sister's team, was Roger Crawford Jr. — who played on the 1993-94 Arkansas national championship team under Nolan Richardson.

On the other side of the court sat Deanna Jackson, a UAB Athletics Hall of Famer who led the Blazers to the Sweet 16 and played in the WNBA.

A Birmingham-born coach bringing her HBCU program to a renovated Bartow Arena, with a national champion and a WNBA veteran watching from opposite baselines. The first game in a new building had some history in the seats.

About that building.

The $15.4 million renovation project broke ground on June 4. The lead contractor, Stone Building, delivered an arena that is still being finished — crews will work through Friday's men's basketball opener against Nicholls at 6:30 p.m. — but already looks nothing like the Bartow Arena that UAB fans last saw.

The concourse, all 34,500 square feet of it, has been overhauled with new lighting, paint, graphics, restrooms and ribbon boards. UAB memorabilia and tributes to program founder Gene Bartow line the walls. The new UAB Athletics Hall of Fame sits along the concourse. A 7,400-square-foot entrance lobby expansion on the south side moves ticketing indoors and modernizes the exterior. The C Spire club level — a new hospitality area with a lounge and premium seating — is still coming together but will be ready for conference play.

The lower bowl has new retractable seating. The baselines have been pulled closer to the court. The Gang Green student section now includes both end-zone and courtside bleacher seating. The hardwood floor is new, with a large UAB dragon at center court and the word "Birmingham" running bold down the sideline.

New scoreboards hang throughout the building. Norton spent part of the postgame press conference laughing about not knowing where to look for foul counts.

"It was confusing," Norton said. "It'll take a little bit."

The sightlines will sort themselves out. The pieces will find their places.

"Yesterday was our first day in here," Norton said. "So nine of our kids, when they came on their visit, we didn't even show them Bartow 'cause it was under construction. Yesterday literally was the first day they stepped foot in here."

For the 308 in attendance Wednesday night, the first impression was a good one. New seats. New court. New scoreboards. A program founder honored on the walls. And a team with a lot of new faces still learning the building they'll call home.

Norton was asked what he thought of the new look.

"Love it. I think it's really nice," he said.