DAVIDSON 79, CHARLOTTE 51
DAVIDSON, N.C. --- Freshman Stephen Curry led six Davidson players in double figures with 17 points as the Wildcats cruised to a 79-51 victory over cross-county rival Charlotte in the annual battle for the Hornets? Nest Trophy in front of the second largest crowd in Belk Arena history Saturday evening. Davidson improved to 7-3 overall in pleasing the 5,563 fans, while the 49ers fell to 3-5 on the campaign.
Despite playing just six minutes in the second half due to foul trouble, Curry finished in double digits for the ninth time in his brief Wildcat career.
Boris Meno recorded a double-double with 15 points and 10 boards, Max Paulhus Gosselin added a career-high 12 including a pair of threes, while Thomas Sander, Jason Richards and Bryant Barr each finished with 11 for the ?Cats. Richards also reached double figures in assists for the second time this season dishing out 10 to just two miscues.
The last time the Wildcats had six individuals with 10 or more points in a game was on Jan. 31, 2004 against UNC Greensboro.
Davidson came out firing on all cylinders, including 4-of-5 from deep in the opening four minutes, to grab an early 14-7 advantage. The Wildcats continued their flurry and stretched the lead to as many as 11 (21-9) on a Curry three-point play with 11:33 remaining in the first. The 49ers cut into the deficit with some threes of their own, but the Wildcats went to the break up 39-31.
Both teams connected on 6-of-16 buckets from long range in the first period, but it was Davidson?s work on the glass that made the difference. The Wildcats grabbed nine offensive boards and controlled the rebound column 25-16 in the stanza.
Curry led all scorers in the first 20 minutes with 15 points including a pair of jumpers from downtown.
Following a 49er layup by De?Angelo Alexander with 13:55 remaining, Davidson went on a 19-3 run sparked by three consecutive treys, one by Richards and back-to-back from Barr to make it 69-42 with just over six minutes left. The Wildcats pushed their lead to the final margin on two separate occasions over the final 3:06 of the contests.
The Wildcats finished the evening shooting 42.2 percent (27-64) from the floor and 38.7 percent (12-31) from long range. Davidson also made the most of its trips to the line hitting 13-of-15 (.867).
Davidson held Charlotte to just five field goals and 21.7 percent overall in the final period. The 49ers were successful on just 32.1 percent of their attempts, including 9-of-27 from behind the arc.
Alexander concluded the evening with 16 points to lead three 49ers in double figures. E.J. Drayton and Leemire Goldwire were the others with 14 and 10, respectively.
Behind 10 rebounds from both Meno and Andrew Lovedale, Davidson outrebounded the 49ers, 45-32.
Tonight?s meeting between the two Mecklenburg Country schools marked the 35th meeting all-time and just the second win for the Wildcats in the last 10 years.
Davidson returns to action in a 5 p.m. home contest against Mount Saint Mary on Friday, Dec. 15. Charlotte will play Houston in the first round of the Rainbow Classic Dec. 21 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
UNC GREENSBORO 91, FURMAN 86 (2 OT)
GREENVILLE, S.C. --- Senior Ricky Hickman netted 29 points, including 13 in overtime, to lift UNC Greensboro to a 91-86 double overtime victory over Furman in Southern Conference men's basketball action Saturday afternoon at Timmons Arena.
Mikko Koivisto buried a three-pointer while Kyle Hines and Hickman converted lay-ups to key a 7-2 Spartan run to start the second overtime period. After Furman's Eric Webb sunk two free throws and connected on a three-pointer to tie the game at 84-84 with 53 seconds left, Hickman scored seven straight points to help UNC Greensboro secure its second SoCon win of the season.
"It was a great college basketball game and both teams competed well," said Furman head coach Jeff Jackson. "Give credit to UNC Greensboro. They just made more plays than we did down the stretch to get the win."
With seven seconds left in regulation and the Spartans trailing 69-67, Koivisto banked in a jumper from the left side of the paint to knot the game at 69-69. Robby Bostain's driving lay-up came up short as time expired sending the game into overtime.
UNCG led throughout the first overtime period, but Bostain made two free throws with nine second left in the period to tie the contest at 77-77 and force the second overtime.
Trailing 17-12 early in the game, UNCG used an 8-0 run to claim the lead at 20-17. The Spartans, who made good on 7-of-16 three-point attempts in the opening 20 minutes stretched their lead to seven before carrying a 33-27 advantage into the locker room.
Furman rallied with a 15-3 spurt midway through the second half to take control of the game at 45-40 with 12:31 remaining. The Paladins held the lead until Koivisto's jumper with nine seconds left in regulation.
Kendall Toney scored 17 points and Koivisto added 14 to join Hickman in double figures for the Spartans. Hines scored 16 on 6-of-14 shooting and grabbed a team-high nine rebounds. UNC Greensboro shot 49.2% (32-65) from the floor, including 57.1% (8-14) in overtime. Despite entering the game shooting 31% from three-point range, the Spartans connected on 12-of-29 (41.4%) of its long range chances.
Webb led Furman with 26 points and five assist. Moussa Diagne tallied 18, Bostain netted 15 and center Stanley Jones contributed 10 to round out the Paladins double figure scorers. Bostain registered 11 rebounds to record his third double-double of the season.
Furman shot 45.5% from the floor and 45.8% (11-24) from three-point range. Following a 7-for-21 effort at the foul line in Tuesday's win over USC Aiken, Furman made 15-of-16 from the charity stripe against UNCG.
The loss snapped Furman's streak of 18 straight regular season victories when scoring 80 or more points. The Paladins last dropped a game when scoring 80 on November 30, 2003 when they fell in overtime at Minnesota 91-84.
UNC Greensboro, 3-6 overall and 2-1 in SoCon play, returns to action on December 21, when it hosts St. Peter's at Fleming Gym. Furman (5-4, 0-1 SoCon) travels to face San Diego on December 16, at 4:00 p.m. ET.
DRAKE 87, GEORGIA SOUTHERN 75
DES MOINES, IOWA --- Drake’s Ajay Calvin scored 16 of his game-high 24 points in the second half and the Bulldogs pitched a shutout in the final 2:11 to defeat Georgia Southern 87-75 Saturday night in the championship of the Drake Regency Challenge in Des Moines.
The Eagles (5-3) received 18 points from senior Donte Gennie (Tallahassee, Fla.) and 15 from junior Dwayne Foreman (Apopka, Fla.). They were joined in double-figures by junior Louis Graham (West Palm Beach, Fla.) who had 14.
Josh Young contributed 19 points to Drake’s (5-2) cause. Young and Calvin were named to the All-Tournament team, with Calvin earning Most Outstanding Player honors.
Drake’s defensive pressure forced Georgia Southern into 17 turnovers and caused GSU to call a couple of timeouts.
“Our biggest problem was getting the ball inbounds,” said GSU head coach Jeff Price. “Once we got it in I thought our guards handled (the pressure) pretty well. We had to get past that first wave. But beyond that we were pretty good offensively - we shot 52 percent.”
A lay-up by senior Jimmy Tobias (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) at the 18:10 mark of the second half made the score 46-45 in favor of Drake, but Young answered immediately with a 3-pointer to kick the lead back up to four, a cushion the Bulldogs held for the next four minutes before stretching it to nine on a trey by Klayton Korver and a dunk from Calvin.
The Eagles managed to cut the deficit to four several times, the last on a jumper by Tobias with 8:33 remaining in the contest. But five straight points from Drake expanded the advantage back to nine (73-64) with 6:49 left and reached 10 on two free throws from Korver.
Graham cut the lead down to eight with a lay-up, but Korver answered again with a trifecta and the closest Georgia Southern would get the rest of the way was nine points.
Drake won the battle of the boards 37-34, and grabbed 14 on the offensive end which led to 17 points.
“Their second-chance shots absolutely killed us,” Price added. “You can’t give up on the road 14 offensive rebounds. Before the game we said the two most important things were transition defense and rebounding. And they really beat us at that.”
The Eagles relied on the quartet of Foreman, Gennie, Graham and freshman Antoine Johnson (Atlanta, Ga.) for their production in the first half. The group combined for all but five of GSU’s points, led by Graham and Foreman who had nine each.
Georgia Southern shot 53.3 percent from the floor in the first half, but Drake, who shot 71.4 percent in the first half of last night’s game vs. Troy, wasn’t far behind, hitting 47.1 percent.
The Eagles return to Statesboro for just their second home contest of the season, a battle with Flagler College Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m.
Drake Regency Challenge All-Tournament Team
James Hughes, Northern Illinois
O’Darien Bassett, Troy
Dwayne Foreman, Georgia Southern
Louis Graham, Georgia Southern
Josh Young, Drake
Ajay Calvin, Drake (Most Outstanding Player)
GARDNER-WEBB 74, WESTERN CAROLINA 73 (OT)
BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. --- Gardner-Webb, who defeated Western Carolina in overtime last season, made eight 3-pointers after halftime, including one in the extra period, as the Bulldogs erased a 17-point, halftime deficit and handed Western Carolina a 74-73 overtime setback Saturday night at Paul Porter Arena. The Bulldogs (2-6) also held the Catamounts (4-3) to just two field goals over the final 11 minutes of the second half. WCU, led by a career-high 3-points from Antonio Russell, made 8-of-12 free throws, but over the final 11 minutes of regulation.
However, with the Cats up two, a costly miss at the charity stripe with 35 seconds left in regulation made it possible for Chris Gash’s 3-pointer with 23 seconds left to force overtime as Western missed a jumper at the buzzer.
In overtime, Gardner-Webb got a jumper from Samba Fall and a 3-pointer by Takayo Siddle to jump out to an early five-point cushion. The five-point lead was GWU’s first since leading 6-4 at the 16:01 mark of the first half. Western kept the Bulldogs from scoring over the final 3:43 over overtime, but were unable to overcome the deficit. Russell made two free throws at the 2:29 mark of overtime to make it a three-point game. He then made a jumper and was fouled to bring WCU to within one. However, the ensuing free throw was missed. The Bulldogs had two more chances to extend their lead but could not. Also, Western had two chances to win the game, but a turnover and a missed jumper at the buzzer allowed Gardner-Webb to escape with the win.
The game started with Western Carolina showing the rust of not playing in seven days, a loss at #24 Xavier. Gardner-Webb jumped out to a 6-2 lead. However, Nick Aldridge answered with a layup and Kyle Greathouse added a 3-pointer to give WCU a 7-6 lead. Western, who held the advantage until the start of overtime, held the Bulldgos with out a point for over seven minutes and would lead by as many as 21 with 5:09 left in the first half. Then, after an Aldridge layup put WCU up 20 with 28 seconds left before the break, Grayson Flittner drained a 3-pointer for GWU. Not only did that make it a 17-point game at halftime (43-26) , it proved to spark the Bulldogs for the second half.
Gardner-Webb opened the second half by making a basket just seven seconds into the period, then got a basket from Samba to trim its deficit to 13. Over the next three minutes, Western would get its lead back to 16 (49-33) with 16:36 left. From that point, Gardner-Web went on a 14-2 run to trail by four (51-47) as four different Bulldogs each made a 3-pointer over the span.
Brigham Waginger got WCU back on track with a 3-pointer from the right wing and Russell followed with a jumper at the 11:04 mark, putting the Cats up nine. However, after that jumper by Russell, Western would only make one more field goal in the second half, a dunk by Russell at the 5:04 mark.
Down six with 5:04 remaining, GWU’s Ricky McPhee hit back-to-back 3-pointers prior to and following two free throws by Russell to make it a two-point contest. Russell would then hit four straight from the line to once again put the Cats up six (68-62) with 2:16 left in regulation. Gash drew the Bulldogs to within four by making two free throws, followed by two free throws by Jake Sims to get GWU to within two. With 35 ticks left, Robinson missed the first of two free throws but made the second, setting the stage for Gash’s game-tying trey. Western worked the clock and was able to get a good look from the right baseline, but the shot rimmed out, forcing overtime.
The game was a tale of two halves. In the first half, WCU shot 58.6 percent from the field, making 4-of-9 3-pointers, and made all five free throw attempts. GWU only shot 35 percent in the first half, making just 3-of-12 beyond the arc, and going 1-of-8 at the charity stripe. However, in the second half, WCU only shot 40 percent, making just 1-of-6 from long range, and going 9-of-13 at the line. The Bulldogs rallied to shoot 68 percent from the field in the second half, making 7-of-11 from 3-point range, and sinking 6-of-10 at the line.
For Western, Russell, who also had a game-high eight rebounds, was 11-of-16 from the field and 8-of-9 at the line. Aldridge added 16 points with Greathouse chipping in nine.
Gardner-Webb was led by Gash’s 18 points with Thomas Sanders scoring 11 off the bench and Siddle adding 10 points.
The Catamounts, who will be taking final exams this week, will once again have seven days off before returning to action next Saturday (Dec. 17) at Dayton. Tipoff is set for 8 pm. The game will mark the first for junior Arnold Gore, who missed WCU’s first seven games due to NCAA transfer rules.