Ian Andersen celebrates one of his five 3-pointers

February 19, 2009 | by Jordan Keyser A10CollegeHoops

CHARLOTTE, NC -The Charlotte 49ers managed to stave off a well-balanced Xavier attack to upset the 17th ranked Musketeers, 65-60.

The Charlotte faithful donned all-white in support of their “whiteout” game. Guard Ian Andersen obviously wanted to keep up with theme by being white hot from 3-point range, going 5-for-7 from beyond the arc. He lead all scorers with 16 points and had 6 rebounds to boot.

“It all starts with Dijuan. He’s running the show out there, finding players and taking it to the rack. He’s playing smart, being the floor general out there. It really does all start with him. He really controlled the game,” Andersen said modestly.

Harris had 10 assists, marking the 5th time in his last 6 games that he achieved double-digit assists. He currently leads the A-10 in assists-per-game with 8.3 APG. Harris ranks 5th nationally in that category.

And while it all starts with Dijuan Harris, tonight it certainly all ended with Lamont Mack. Despite a very poor first half, Mack scored all 12 of his points in the last 8 minutes of the game, capping it off by hitting a huge baseline 3-pointer with 30 seconds left that put the 49ers up for good.

“Coach had faith in me. I wasn’t really hitting those shots all game long, but he drew some plays up for me down the stretch and I was able to convert,” said Mack.

Coach Bobby Lutz added, “Lamont was struggling, but he made the big shots at the end, obviously. That’s what matters.”

Mack scored 12 out of Charlotte’s 15 points during his scoring streak.

Lamont wasn’t the only one to hit big shots for the Niners. An’Juan Wilderness hit big free throws in the late seconds to officially ice the game, including two with 11 seconds left. Xavier’s C.J. Anderson hit a quick lay-up to cut the lead in half but Wilderness’ clutchness at the line proved to be too much.

Charlotte's student section storms the court.

“The atmosphere was…I can’t even put it into words right now. It’s a great feeling. I can’t remember it ever being like this.” Wilderness said of the hometown’s display of pride.

Despite the tough loss, Xavier had six of its nine players score more than 7 points. Coach Sean Miller didn’t have as optimistic of a viewpoint.

“(Charlotte) is playing their best basketball of the season. We are not playing well. Things need to be fixed and they will be, starting at practice tomorrow.” Coach Miller said in a very brief statement released by the university.

It was an all-around glorious night for Charlotte, which included former star and Conference USA Player of the Year Eddie Basden’s jersey being retired in a ceremony at halftime.

Charlotte improved to 10-15 (4-7 A10), while Xavier fell to 21-5 (9-3 A10). The Musketeers have dropped 3 out of their last 4 games after getting off to an 8-0 start in A-10 Conference play.

The 49ers hope to keep things rolling, as they head to Richmond on Saturday. Xavier looks to end its skid, facing George Washington at home on Sunday.

February 19, 2009 | AP Press

ST. LOUIS, MO — Kwamain Mitchell hit a career-high five 3-pointers and finished with 17 points to lead Saint Louis over Saint Joseph’s 73-71 on Wednesday night.

Kevin Lisch added 15 for points the Billikens (16-10, 7-5 Atlantic 10), who won for the fifth time in six games and sent Saint Joseph’s (14-11, 7-4) to a third straight loss.

The Hawks’ Ahmad Nivins recorded a conference-leading 17th double-double with 22 points and 11 rebounds, despite being held scoreless for the final 9:56 of the game.

Saint Louis used a 7-2 run early in the second half to take the lead for good at 53-48.

Mitchell’s final 3-pointer put the Billikens up 68-64 with 1:10 left.

A 3-pointer by Garrett Williamson brought the Hawks within 72-71 with 2.3 seconds remaining, but Lisch sank a free throw and Nivins’ desperation shot from 30 feet at the buzzer fell short.

Barry Eberhardt added 14 points and Willie Reed came off the bench to score 11 for Saint Louis.

February 18, 2009 | AP Press

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Kevin Anderson scored a career-high 28 points to lead Richmond to a 62-53 victory over La Salle on Wednesday night.

Jarhon Giddings had 11 points and nine rebounds for the Spiders (13-13, 5-6 Atlantic 10), who won for just the second time in seven games.

Rodney Green had 13 points for La Salle (14-11, 5-6), which shot a season-worst 28.1 percent (18-for-64) from the field while matching its season-low for points.

After trailing 30-25 at the break, La Salle opened the second half on an 11-0 run to take a 36-30 lead with 15:16 left. But Richmond scored eight of the next 10, capped by an Anderson layup, to tie it at 38 with 12:14 remaining.

The Spiders then took control with a 9-2 run over the next 2:49, ending on a driving layup by Anderson, to take a 47-40 lead. The Explorers never got closer than five points the rest of the way.

Richmond won despite a season-low five points from leading scorer David Gonzalvez, who entered averaging 16.8.

February 18, 2009 by Chris Maza | A10CollegeHoops

AMHERST, Mass. – The UMass student section’s “blackout” couldn’t stop Keith Cothran from shooting lights out.

As the UMass fans donned all black in an attempt to throw the Rhode Island Rams off their game, Cothran found his with a career high in points and URI came back from a 12-point deficit to beat the Minutemen, 71-59, at the Mullins Center Wednesday night.

“He’s very aggressive and he attacks the bucket,” Rams head coach Jim Baron. “He’s a kid who just plays hard. He creates problems because he’s a big guard.”

Cothran came off the bench to score 26 points on 11-of-17 shooting.

Keith Cothran – Rhode Island Rams (G)

“I just knew I wanted to go out there and be aggressive,” Cothran said. “I watched film on them and they like to scramble (on defense), so I just wanted to hit the open shots and drive to the basket.”

It was an incredibly big effort on a night when usual team leaders Kahiem Seawright and Jimmy Baron disappeared. Baron, who came in averaging 16.6 points per game, was a non-factor throughout, scoring six points on 1-of-7 shooting. His lone field goal came in the final minutes of the first half. Seawright scored just four points.

Cothran and the rest of the Rams bench came through, however, combining for 43 points.

“It was tremendous. I think our younger guys stepped up,” Jim Baron said. “We had a lot of guys stepped up and in this league, you can’t do it with one or two guys. You need to have a number of guys being able to step up and our guys really showed it.”

UMass jumped out to a lead right off the bat with a pair of three points to start the game and didn’t give up the lead for the rest of the half. The Minutemen extended the lead to 12, the largest of the game, with a floater in the lane by Ricky Harris and a put back by Tyrell Lynch, putting the score at 31-19.

But the Rams charged back into it with a 9-0 run to end the half and close within three points at 31-28 going into the half.

Rhode Island finally took its first lead in the second half on Cothran’s three-pointer, but UMass posted an 8-0 run to jump back out front, 47-41.

The Rams finally took the lead for good with 2:28 remaining when Seawright hit two free throws to give Rhode Island a 59-57 lead. Those free throws sparked a 12-2 run to end the game.

“It’s getting a little redundant. We play really great basketball for 36 minutes and then almost figure out a way yourself to lose,” UMass head coach Derek Kellogg said.

After being held to 29 percent shooting in the first half, Rhode Island rebounded and shot at a 60 percent clip to outscore UMass, 43-28, in the second half. Meanwhile, UMass shot consistently poorly, hitting just 37 percent of its attempts.

 The Minutemen got 15 points apiece from Harris and Chris Lowe. Lowe also dished five assists, leaving him one short of becoming UMass’ career leader. Tony Gaffney added 11 points and blocked six shots, but no one took charge for the Minutemen down the stretch.

“Until someone steps up and says, ‘I’m going to take this game over, I’m going to be tough, I’m not letting us lose,’ we’re going to continue to throw games away at the end and our season will end before we know it,” said Gaffney.

It was UMass’ second straight loss and sixth in its last eight games. At 9-15 and 4-7 in the Atlantic 10, the Minutemen drop into a tie with St. Bonaventure with one of the conference’s worst records.

The win was a huge boost for the Rams, who leapfrogged St. Joseph’ to take over 4th place in the standings with an 8-4 conference mark. They are 19-8 overall on the season.

Lavoy Allen - Temple Owls (F)  

February 18, 2009 | AP Press

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Lavoy Allen scored 19 points and had 11 rebounds Wednesday as Temple cruised to its fourth straight victory, a 72-45 win over Fordham.

Dionte Christmas also had 14 points while Craig Williams contributed 11 points and Ryan Brooks had 10 for the Owls (16-9, 8-3 Atlantic-10).

Jio Fontan scored 14 points and Jacob Green added 13 for the Rams (3-20, 1-10), who dropped their fifth in a row. Fordham has lost 13 of its last 14 and fell to last place in the 14-team conference.

Temple led 33-22 at halftime and 42-29 with 14:40 remaining before going on a 19-4 run.

Allen scored eight points and Christmas had six during the key spurt, which extended Temple’s lead to 61-33 with 6:15 left.

Allen registered his team-high ninth double-double of the season as the Owls outrebounded Fordham 41-31.

Jason Duty tries to pass against Temple's zone (Photo courtesy: Stacy Gault)

February 15, 2009 by Josh Taylor | A10CollegeHoops  

When considering Duquesne’s last three games, including their upset victory over then ninth-ranked Xavier on February 7, the constant trend is the Dukes have had a hard time maintaining leads and finishing games.

That was the recurring sentiment among the team after falling to Temple, 78-73, in a Sunday matinee at the A.J. Palumbo Center in which they led by as much as eight points midway through the first half. They held the Owls’ talented senior guard, Dionte Christmas, to 15 points on 4-of-15 shooting, but could not overcome a late second-half collapse, combined with the clutch shooting of Ryan Brooks and freshman Juan Fernandez.

“I thought our kids really did a great job on Christmas today,” Duquesne head coach Ron Everhart said at the postgame press conference, “and I thought our game plan worked out really, really well. It was unfortunate because they got a lot of production out of the other two [guard] spots.”

Temple got out to an early 9-5 lead in the first half, but then Duquesne scored seven consecutive points on a three-point play by Bill Clark, a steal and breakaway slam by Damian Saunders, and a pair of free throws by Aaron Jackson to make it 12-9. 

The Dukes maintained the lead through the end of the half, but missed a handful of opportunities to extend it, and an 18-7 run by the Owls in the last seven minutes of the half put Duquesne up by only one at the break, despite 11 points from Saunders and 10 from Jackson.

“When we have a lead, we need to take decent shots because we could have been up by 10 or 12 at halftime,” said Jackson, who finished with a game-high 21 points. “But we took poor shots and we didn’t shoot the ball as well.”

The second half was no more promising, as Christmas knocked down a three-pointer and a jump shot to put Temple up by four within the first two minutes. But Duquesne responded with a 9-0 run, capped off on a no-look pass from B.J. Monteiro to a cutting Saunders for a layup with 15:40 remaining.

After four ties and seven lead-changes in the second half, Temple took a 62-58 lead on a Brooks three-pointer. He shot 3-for-4 from behind the arc and finished with 11 points. Clark, the Dukes’ top outside shooter, second in the conference in three-point percentage, answered with a three of his own, and Duquesne was back within one.

The next three possessions for the Dukes would embody the struggles they have faced in their last three contests, including going nearly the final eight minutes in the win over Xavier without a field goal. Freshman point guard Eric Evans missed two open three-point attempts, and then Jackson missed on a driving layup opportunity. Two layups by 6′9″ sophomore Lavoy Allen sandwiched around a made free throw, plus two free throws by Christmas gave Temple the seven-point surge they needed to grab a firm hold on the lead and keep it the rest of the way.

“We had three straight possessions where Evans missed two wide open three’s — and I mean they were wide open,” Everhart said, “and then Jackson comes down the lane, and that same layup that he made against [George Washington] and against Charlotte… he missed it.

“Those three possessions really hurt us because they had the dribble-drive with Allen, and Christmas got fouled on the dribble-drive and made two free throws.”

A layup by Jackson, followed by two free throws and another pair from Clark cut the deficit to four, but a nice spin and layup on a post-up move by Fernandez on Jason Duty broke the Dukes’ back with 41 seconds left. An Argentina native having enrolled in only December, Fernandez shot 7-of-9, including 2-for-4 from three-point range for 19 points, and his performance was not lost on the host team.

“I was impressed watching him a couple of weeks ago,” Jackson said of Fernandez. “I saw him on TV and I thought he was going to be a really good point guard in this league. He runs the team really well, he’s a phenomenal passer, and he’s really poised to be a freshman.”

Sophomore forwards Bill Clark and Damian Saunders have had to assume veteran roles due to Duquesne's young roster (Photo courtesy: Stacy Gault)

Speaking of youth, Everhart refused to blame the loss on his roster’s lack of experience. Having eight scholarship freshman and only one scholarship upperclassman, Duquesne has one of the youngest rosters in the country based on average age.

“I wish we had better depth, especially up front,” Everhart said, “but we have what we have. I think Clark and Saunders are giving us everything they’ve got, but in our backcourt, we’ve got to have one of our guards step up off the bench and be more productive for us.”

“It’s always tough when you get a loss, or you’re going on a two-game losing streak, but I think it’s just that we’ve got to come together, have a meeting or something, and get everybody on the same page,” Saunders said. “We have guys going off, being wild, and trying to play their game, but it’s really a team effort.”

The Dukes have five games remaining on their schedule, including a week off before visiting LaSalle and Massachusetts in a three-day span. One win in those last five games will secure a winning season for the Dukes, the second in Everhart’s three years as head coach and the program’s first consecutive winning run since the 1979-80 and 1980-81 seasons.

“I know it’s getting old, but we’ve got to learn from our mistakes,” Jackson said. “We need to just dig in and say, ‘enough is enough.’ We’ve got to start pulling out these wins.”

AP Photo

February 14, 2009 | AP Press

DAYTON, Ohio — Chris Wright had 17 points and 10 rebounds to lead Dayton to a 69-63 win over Richmond on Saturday night, with the Flyers setting an arena record with their 17th consecutive home victory.

London Warren added 10 points and six assists for the Flyers (23-3, 9-2), who remained tied with Xavier for first place in the Atlantic 10.

Kevin Anderson scored 24 points and David Gonzalvez had 16 for Richmond (12-13, 4-6).

Dayton never trailed after the opening 2 minutes of the game, but the Spiders were behind just 57-53 with 5:45 left in the game after a three-point play by Gonzalvez.

Charles Little followed with a three-point play of his own and the Spiders never got closer than five points again.

The Flyers have won more than 17 home games in a row, but not since moving into the University of Dayton Arena in 1969.

February 14, 2009 | AP Press

OLEAN, N.Y. — Maurice Thomas scored 18 points and had seven rebounds to lead St. Bonaventure over Massachusetts, 83-75, Saturday in Atlantic 10 conference play.

Chris Matthews also scored 18 points for St. Bonaventure (13-11, 4-7). Jonathan Hall scored 13 points and had 10 rebounds while Malcolm Eleby turned in 12 points and seven assists.

For Massachusetts (9-14, 4-6), Tony Gaffney scored a game-high 21 points and Ricky Harris scored 19. Chris Lowe and Luke Bonner added 13 and 11 points, respectively.

With Massachusetts leading 17-12, St. Bonaventure kicked off a 9-2 run with 13:06 left in the half to tie the game at 21. The contest stayed neck-and-neck until 2:24 remained in the game, when Matthews hit a 3-pointer to give the Bonnies a 75-73 lead. Andrew Nicholson followed up Matthews shot with a slam dunk that effectively put the game away for St. Bonaventure .

February 14, 2009 | AP Press

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Rodney Green scored 20 points and Kimmani Barrett added 20 as La Salle upset city rival St. Joseph’s 75-68 Saturday.

Jerrell Williams had 12 points and Ruben Guillandeaux added 11 points and 8 assists for La Salle (14-10, 5-5 Atlantic 10), while Darrin Govens had 21 points and Ahmad Nivins 11 points and 14 rebounds for the Hawks (14-10, 7-3).

Nivins, whose 20 points per game leads the conference in scoring, was held to only three shot attempts in the game.

La Salle never trailed in the second half, and twice led by 10 points before the Hawks closed to 57-53 with 4:52 left. The Explorers then went on a 10-3 run, capped by a three-point play by Guillandeaux at the 1:27 mark, which helped seal the win.

The Hawks jumped out to an early 20-8 advantage, but La Salle responded with a 17-2 run helped by two treys by Green to lead 25-20. La Salle led 35-30 at the half, heading off 40 shots while making 15.

St. Joseph’s went 7 for 18 and committed 12 turnovers.

February 14, 2009 by Chris Frechette | A10CollegeHoops

KINGSTON, RI — Rhode Island started off their contest against St. Louis in much different fashion than their win over St. Bonaventure last Wednesday, but the outcome was still the same.  “It’s real important to grab an early lead, especially after the St. Bonaventure game,” said URI Coach Jim Baron.  That seemed to be in the minds of all URI players after they fell behind by 15 points at the half this past Wednesday against the Bonnies.

URI jumped out to a 10-2 lead in the first three minutes of the game scoring on its first four possessions highlighted by a Marquis Jones to Lamonte Ulmer alley oop.

Ulmer was huge in the Rams victory scoring a game high 18 points on 8 of 9 shooting from the field, which included four layups and four dunks, two of which were alley oops.  “I feed off of the crowd, but not too much,” he said.  “I feed off of my teammates.  I’m thankful to the crowd, it’s a good feeling to do something productive and help the team.  It just feels good.”  Coach Baron was singing Ulmer’s praises, “Lamonte plays with such high energy, it’s good to have that kind of athletic ability.”

St. Louis (15-10, 6-5 A-10) battled back to cut the Rams lead to 14-13 on a Willie Reed (9 points, 6 rebounds) dunk at the 10:01 mark despite turning the ball over 7 times at that point.  The turnover situation would be huge in this game as the Billikens would go on to turn the ball over 20 times to just 8 for URI.  The Rams physical defense lead to 8 steals, but St. Louis just didn’t take very good care of the ball as they passed the ball out of bounds, twice when noone was in the area of the pass.

Coach Baron was pleased with his teams effort, “We knew it would be a hard fought game, they beat us last year and we knew how physical it would be,” he said.  “We made some adjustments with our pressure, and we turned them over 20 times and took it to the basket, and we had 18 assists.”

The Rams took much better care of the ball, led by point guards Marquis Jones and Stevie Mejia, who combined for 10 assists and just 4 turnovers.  “We battle every day in practice and pressure each other and make each other better,” Mejia said.

Rhode Island (18-8, 7-4 A-10) built up its biggest  lead at 57-42 with 5:17 left in the game as Kahiem Seawright slipped under the defense for a layup on a pass from Mejia.  Seawright posted a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.

Even down by 15 points it didn’t feel as though the Billikens were out of the game.  Rhode Island was only 8 of 18 from the free throw line at that point and if St. Louis was going to get back into the game, it may have been because of the Rams shaky foul shooting.  But down the stretch URI was perfect from the  charity stripe knocking down all 6 of its free throws, although one was called back for a lane violation on Ben Eaves.  “We got to keep working on our free throw shooting and concentrate better,” said Coach Baron.

With the win, Rhode Island improved to 11-1 at home this season and it was URI’s first win over SLU since February 14, 2007.

It was another sweet Valentine’s Day for the Rams and the 5,214 fans in attendance at the Ryan Center.