SoCon Men’s Basketball Recaps from January 7, 2008
UNC GREENSBORO 84, THE CITADEL 54
GREENSBORO, NC ? UNC Greensboro ran out to a 17-0 lead in the game’s first five minutes on their way to a 84-54 win over The Citadel in Southern Conference men’s basketball action on Monday night.
All-America candidate Kyle Hines extended his nation’s longest double figure scoring streak to 63 straight games in the first 10 minutes of the contest ? marking the 29th time in the string that he had done it before halftime. The 6-6 senior from Sicklerville, NC finished the night with 22 points on a perfect 10-for-10 from the floor, a UNCG single-game record.
Hines did not return to the floor after leaving with 16:26 to play and played just 19 minutes. In fact, no UNCG starter played after the 16:06 mark of the second half.
Hines became the seventh player in SoCon history to go 10-for-10 or better from the floor in a game and just the third time in a conference game. The SoCon record for field goal percentage in a game is 12-for-12 by Chattanooga’s Ashley Champion in 2002 and Tyson Patterson of Appalachian State in 2000.
The win was UNCG’s sixth straight, its longest winning streak since January 2001. The Spartans raised their mark to 9-4 overall and 3-1 in conference play. UNCG led by as many as 40 in the second half before clearing the bench. The 30-point margin was UNCG’s most lopsided conference win since joining a Division I conference in 1993-94 as a member of the Big South and was the Spartans largest win over a Division I opponent.
Kevin Oleksiak chipped in with 11 points and six assists to tie a season-high. Dwayne Johnson also dished out five assists, the 22nd time in his career he has had five or more assists in a game. Pete Brown grabbed a career-high eight rebounds off the bench for the Spartans.
The Citadel (5-9, 0-5) got 19 points from Austin Dahn, including 5-for-7 from three-point range. Tyrell McDowell chipped in with 12 points and seven rebounds.
The win was career No. 297 for Mike Dement and his 92nd in his two tenures at UNCG, tying him with Bob McEvoy for the most wins by a Spartan coach.
“I was happy with a lot of things tonight,” said UNCG coach Mike Dement. “You get a lead like that early and I think you look at how you can start working some other guys into the game. As a coach, you always find ways to improve. You look down at the box score and you see they hit 10 three-pointers. Those are the things that we need to improve on.”
The Citadel started five true freshmen on Monday night, and the Spartans took advantage right from the start. UNCG jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the first 3:11 of the contest ? six of them coming on a pair of Mikko Koivisto treys ? to force the Bulldogs into an early timeout. The run continued from there.
The Bulldogs stabilized things briefly, playing UNCG even to a 28-13 score. The Bulldogs recovered from a 0-for-9 start from the field, but the Spartans ran off seven straight for their first 20-point advantage of the night. Shortly thereafter, Hines scored on an alley-oop to make him 8-for-8 on the night and UNCG had a 39-15 lead with still four minutes left in the half.
The led grew to 47-18 at the break, UNCG’s largest lead of the season to that point, outscoring the Bulldogs 26-4 in the paint and shooting 54.3 percent from the floor.
With the Spartan starters already on the bench, UNCG’s lead grew to 40 midway through the second half before a 14-4 Citadel run closed the gap to 74-44 with 3:57 to play.