The Charlotte 49ers never quit Wednesday night. Not when Damian Hollis scored 13 of the Colonials’ first 19 points to put the Niners down 13, not when a foul or two didn’t go their way and not when they trailed by five with 1:25 left. Bobby Lutz’s teams have never quit on him, and they didn’t tonight in Charlotte’s 72-68 come-from-behind win over George Washington.
“I told our guys, we’re the hunted instead of the hunter,” Lutz said following the win. “I think we got GW’s best shot. And I think that kind of happens when you work your way to the top, even though it’s still miles to go.”
Shamari Spears scored a career-high 31 for Charlotte (17-5; 7-1), who stayed tied at the top of the A-10 after Xavier and Temple both got wins over UMass and Duquesne, respectively. The Niners also got a solid outing from Dijuan Harris (11 points, eight assists) and Phil Jones (10 points, five rebounds, three blocks). Charlotte also got a promising effort from junior Charles Dewhurst, who grabbed a season-high 11 rebounds and sparked Charlotte’s first-half comeback.
Hollis scored a team-high 23 points for the Colonials (12-9; 2-6) who lost for the sixth time in the last seven games and dropped their fourth straight road game. Freshman Lasan Kromah added 11 points and six rebounds and Aaron Ware scored eight points and grabbed five rebounds in just 16 minutes.
Hollis came out firing for the Colonials, scoring 13 of the Colonials’ first 17 points and put the Niners in a deep, 19-6 hole early in the opening stanza. Over the next 10 minutes, Charlotte got points from five different players to cut the score to 26-25 with 6:58 left and trailed 35-32 at the half.
The game was back-and-forth over the first 10 minutes of the second half and the Niners eventually took their first lead of the game, 48-47 on a Spears 3-pointer with 11:14 remaining.
Kromah made a layup with 1:25 left to put the Colonials up 68-63 and in control of the game. That layup turned out to be the Colonials’ final basket of the game though. Derrio Green, the A-10 Player of the Week, had struggled all night, scoring just two points on 0-of-6 shooting from the field up until that point, but Green didn’t quit. The sophomore sensation knocked down two free throws to pull the Niners to within three, and buried the game-tying 3-pointer with 48 seconds left.
“Derrio had a rough game but he told me he wanted the shot when we were down three,” Lutz said of the tying 3-pointer. “Phil (Jones) set a great screen for him and he was able to knock it in.”
After Green’s tying 3-pointer, the Niners got a steal from Harris and he was fouled going to the rack at the other end. Harris made both foul shots to put Charlotte up 70-68 and Jones added two more foul-shots for Charlotte after a missed GWU shot to give Charlotte another win at Halton Arena.
The Niners improved to 9-1 at Halton this season and got another important win in their quest to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2004-05 season. Charlotte will head north on Saturday to take on Fordham in a 2:00 p.m. match-up.
You have an excellent blog. I am not sure if too many people know about it. Maybe we can link to it from the Charlotte Observer comment area. Go Niners!!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your support. I try and network it as much as I can through Facebook and Twitter and it's becoming more popular. But I'm definately always trying to get it more publicity. If you know of a way to get it linked to that page, let me know. Thanks again for the support
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