University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
UNC Asheville
Charleston Southern
UNC Asheville Downs Charleston Southern, 73-56 - UNC Asheville Bulldogs Official Athletics Site
01.01.1970 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 24, 2007
CHARLESTON, S.C. - UNC Asheville is going into next week's Big South Conference Tournament playing its best basketball of the season.
The Bulldogs (11-18, 6-8 BSC) won their season-high third straight game with a workmanlike 73-56 Big South Conference road victory over a depleted Charleston Southern squad. Asheville placed three players in double figures to get its first season sweep of the Buccaneers in seven years.
UNC Asheville will be at either Coastal Carolina or Liberty Tuesday night at the first round of the Big South Conference Tournament. The pairings will be announced later tonight.
Charleston Southern (8-21, 2-12 BSC) played the game with just eight players as seven different Buccaneers didn't play due to injuries. Dwayne Jackson paced the CSU attack with 15 points.
The Bulldogs were led by Bryan Smithson with a game-high 16 points. Center Kenny George tied his career-high with 14 points as he was 7-of-8 from the field. He grabbed seven rebounds and blocked two shots. Junior guard K.J. Garland finished with 13 points and three assists.
"I'm really pleased with our guys to get a victory here today," stated UNC Asheville coach Eddie Biedenbach. "We're finally coming together as a team and it couldn't have come at a better time. I don't want to say we're hot right now but we are playing better basketball.
"We got off to a good start," added Biedenbach. "Charleston Southern made some runs at us, which we knew they would do, but we were able to handle it and make enough plays to get a big road win."
Smithson got the Bulldogs rolling early. He hit his first three three-point shots to get Asheville to an 11-0 lead after the first four minutes. The Dogs' defense forced three early CSU turnovers.
The lead was 21-9 before the Buccaneers made a run and closed to 21-20 on a trey from Terrence Greir at the 7:30 mark.
But Garland hit two straight treys to quickly push the margin up to a 27-20. George scored six points in the final four minutes of the half to lead to 38-28 at halftime.
In the second half, the Bulldogs steadily built on the lead and Brett Warner's follow shot padded the lead to 52-35 with 13 minutes remaining.
Charleston Southern made one more run as a three-point play from Dwayne Jackson carved the lead to 59-48 at the 7:04 mark. But the Bulldogs clamped down on defense and went on a 9-2 run over the next three minutes to seal the victory at 70-52. Asheville got baskets from four different players during the run.
UNC Asheville dominated the backboards at 44-26. It marked the sixth straight game the Bulldogs won the battle of the boards.
"I'm excited about going to the Big South Conference Tournament," stated Biedenbach. "We're playing pretty good basketball. To me, the NCAA Tournament starts with the Big South Conference Tournament.
