According to St. Joe’s head Coach Phil Martelli, the Hawks ran into an “angry” Charlotte team on Wednesday night. Boy, did the 49ers ever look angry. Charlotte opened the game on an 18-6 run and never looked back as they romped over a downtrodden St. Joe’s squad 95-58.
The win moved Charlotte to 19-8 overall and 9-4 in A-10 play. More importantly, it clinched Charlotte at least a bye or a first-round home game in the A-10 Tournament next month.
“I certainly felt very early on that we played an angry team. A team that had lost three in a row,” Martelli said. “We wanted to pay special attention to Derrio Green from the perimeter and even from the first play of the game, we executed defensively, and Harris made a three.”
During Charlotte’s recent three-game skid, the Niners were shooting a lowly 33 percent from the field and just 22 percent from behind the arc. Wednesday night, they couldn’t miss. Charlotte knocked down 18-of30 (60 percent) of their shots from the field including 6-of-9 from behind the arc in the first half to blow the doors off the Hawks and build a 50-23 halftime lead. Their largest halftime lead of the season.
The second half wasn’t dissimilar in any way as the Niners shot 54 percent from the field and buried six more three-pointers. Charlotte’s second half lead built to as many as 40 at the 10:43 mark, 74-34 and the Niners finished off the Hawks in impressive fashion.
Charlotte had five players reach double-figures on the night, including a season-high 19 from senior guard Ian Andersen. Also adding to the Charlotte scoring attack was Chris Braswell (10 points), Shamari Spears (17 points), An’Juan Wilderness (10 points) and freshman Gokhan Sirin with 11 points on 4-of-4 shooting including 3-3 from downtown.
“My teammates have gotten me shots all season I just haven’t made them,” Andersen said following the win. “I haven’t played as much as I did last year but I just hadn’t been making the shots as consistently as I had in the past.”
“My teammates did the same thing they do all the time which is work hard to try to get me open. I just felt really confident. Everyone was playing confidently tonight.”
Charlotte shot a season-high 56.9 percent from the field while knocking down 12-of-24 three-pointers. One of the telling tales from this game was the play of Charlotte’s bench, as they outscored the Hawks 46-17.
St. Joe’s had three players reach double-figures as Todd O’Brien scored 12 points and pulled down 10 rebounds, Darrin Govens scored 12 and Garrett Williamson added 11 more. The loss kept St. Joe’s winless on the road in conference play.
Charlotte faces George Washington Saturday at 6 p.m. in Washington, D.C.
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