The Charlotte 49ers men’s basketball team kicked off their season Friday night with an 86-70 win over the visiting Bulldogs of UNC Asheville. Charlotte had five different players score in double-figures and was led by redshirt-freshman Shamarr Bowden’s 21 points. The win was also the 200th of head coach Bobby Lutz’s 49er career, the most all-time for a 49er head coach.
“Pleased to get the first win, especially with the injury situation and some other things we were dealing with,” head coach Bobby Lutz said. “Give UNC Asheville credit, they came in with a great game plan, executed it very well and hung around. I though Asheville played very well today, they have a good team.”
Charlotte was led in the paint by junior center Phil Jones and freshman forward Chris Braswell, both of whom recorded double-doubles on the night. Jones scored 10 points and pulled down 10 rebounds in just 12 minutes of play in the first half to fill the void left by suspended Boston College transfer Shamari Spears. Braswell, a highly-touted freshman player scored 10 points and recorded 11 rebounds in his collegiate debut.
“Last year I was a little overweight and it affected me on and off the court,” Jones said. “I used this whole summer to dedicate my game to basketball. Slimmed down, lost a couple pounds, I’m quicker to the ball and it just pays off.”
Charlotte stretched its lead to as many as 16 in the first half and led 40-27 at the break. The Bulldogs came out firing in the second half however, and cut the Charlotte lead to just one point when Quinard Jackson made a layup to make the score 49-48. That’s when Shamarr Bowden went off. The redshirt-freshman buried four three-pointers on four straight possessions to push Charlotte’s lead to 61-51, sending the crowd into a frenzy.
“Our point guard (DiJuan Harris) knows where I’m going to be in transition and we play good together,” Bowden said. “He knows where I like to catch it and shoot and he got me the ball and the guys looking for me from the inside, from the post did a nice job of getting me the ball.”
On his birthday, Charlotte senior point guard DiJuan Harris came away with a solid performance, scoring 14 points, adding six assists and was a perfect 7-7 from the foul line.
Chris Stephenson came off the bench to lead UNC Asheville in points with 22 and rebounds with six.
“He’s (Stephenson) really a talented player,” Asheville head coach Ed Biedenbach said. “He’s been kind of a floater for us, free-wheeling, free-thinking and he’s gotten better every day. He’s a great athlete and he’s a good shooter.”
Charlotte denied Asheville’s attempt to rally by capitalizing on 17 consecutive free throws during a six-minute span in the second half. The 49ers finished the game at 83 percent from the foul line. The win was the sixth season-opening win in a row for Charlotte and pushed Lutz’s record in openers to 11-1.
Charlotte now heads on the road to face Elon in the opening round of the Dicks Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off in Durham, N.C. on Monday at 9:30 p.m.
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