February 28, 2009

Jordan Keyser | A10CollegeHoops

CHARLOTTE, NC - The 49ers dominated the Fordham Rams from buzzer to buzzer, hammering out a 73-55 victory at home.

The game showcased two of the A-10’s premiere point guards in Fordham’s Jio Fontan and Charlotte’s DiJuan Harris, although the duel was rather one-sided. Harris once again dictated the pace for the 49ers and outplayed Fontan on both sides of the ball.

Charlotte (11-17, 5-9 A 10) was led by Harris’ 14 point and 11 assist effort. It was Harris’ 6th points/assists double-double of the season, and the 11th time he reached double-digit assists this year. Harris is the A-10 assist leader, and ranks 4th nationally with 7.1 apg. Fontan came in averaging 15.3 ppg, but managed to net just 9 points and 4 assists.

Harris humbly credited his success to the performance of his teammates.

“You can’t reall focus in on one player when six people score double digits. It really frees everyone up on the court and lets me do my job.”

Among Harris’ 11 assists, he had three alley-oops, which have become a regular occurrence, and almost a staple in the 49ers arsenal. RaShad Coleman caught one such alley-oop with 7 minutes left and threw down a ferocious reverse two-handed jam that put Charlotte up 67-44, and put the hometown crowd into a frenzy.

DiJuan Harris wasn’t as easily as impressed.

“It doesn’t really surprise me,” joked Harris. “We practice that play all the time in practice. He loves throwing down reverses. As soon as the ball left my hands I knew that he was gonna do it.”

Outside of Harris’ stellar performance, Charlotte was led by a very balanced attack, with 6 players scoring in double figures. Among them was crowd favorite Lamont Mack, who had 13 points and 7 boards.

Fordham, (3-23, 1-13 A 10) was led by Mike Moore with 20 points and 7 rebounds, while Alberto Estwick added 12 points on just 4-for-15 shooting.

“Charlotte killed us off turnovers,” said Fordham Head Coach Derrick Whittenburg. “They had something like 25 points off of turnovers, and that’s just not the way you win basketball games. Our margin of error is so slim with our top two scorers out. 16 turnovers? We just can’t afford to do that.”

The win was 49er head coach Bobby Lutz’s 199th victory at Charlotte. In another bit of Charlotte history, DiJuan Harris became just the 3rd player in Charlotte history to have over 200 assists in a season.

Charlotte hosts Richmond Tuesday night in their final home game of the season. Fordham heads to Philadelphia to face La Salle Wednesday night.