University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
UNC Asheville
Charleston Southern
Bulldogs Fall to Hot-Shooting Bucs 93-88
01.19.2012 | Men's Basketball
The loss as the Bulldogs first league loss of the year and snapped a seven-game winning streak for Asheville. The home team fell to 13-7 overall and 8-1 in the league.
J.P. Primm led Asheville with 26 points, while Matt Dickey added 22 points. Chris Stephenson scored his 1,000th career point in the game with a three-pointer early in the contest. He finished with 14 points.
CSU (12-7, 6-3 BSC) also got 20 points from Saah Nimley with 20 points and nine assists. Kelvin Martin had a double-double with 17 points and 12 rebounds.
The Buccaneers built a14-point lead in the second half but had to hold off a frantic Bulldog comeback to get the road win.
Primm's three-pointer with three minutes left tied the game at 84-84. But Asheville could never get the lead.
Harper hit two free throws with 2:54 left to give the Bucs the lead for good at 86-84. Nimley added two more charity tosses to push the lead to 88-84 at the 1:51 mark.
The Bulldogs closed to 90-88 on a Jaron Lane tap-in with 12 seconds left. Harper was able to hit 1-of-2 free throws to put CSU in front, 91-88.
Asheville had a chance to tie but Dickey's three-pointer just missed with three seconds left. Harper grabbed the rebound. He hit two free throws to seal the win.
Both teams shot remarkably well from the field. CSU was 33-of-56 for .589. They went 9-of-20 from beyond the arc for .450. Asheville shot .558 from the field (29-of-52) and shot 50 percent (12-of-24) from the three-point line.
But CSU controlled the boards as it out-rebounded Asheville 33-21 and had a 21-7 advantage in second-chance points.
Harper had 16 points in the first half as the Bucs took advantage of 11 Bulldog turnovers to take a 47-40 halftime lead. CSU led by seven despite Asheville shooting .667 (14-of-21) from the field.
The Buccaneers continued to build on the lead and push the lead to 14 at 67-53 on a steal and jumper from Harper with 15:43 left.
The Bulldogs chipped away behind Primm and Dickey. The duo combined for 32 points in the second half to lead the Asheville charge.
UNC Asheville plays again at Presbyterian College Saturday night at 7 p.m. Charleston Southern hosts Winthrop Saturday afternoon at 5:30 p.m.
NOTES
Matt Dickey moved into fourth place on Asheville's career scoring list with 1,561 points. He is now the program's Division I all-time leading scorer. He also became the 10th player in Big South history to make 400 made free throws. Dickey was 6-of-6 from the line and now has 404 made free throws in his career, the most in school history.
Chris Stephenson becomes the 28th player in school history to record 1,000 career points. He now has 1,011 career points.
Asheville's seven-game home-court winning streak was snapped on Thursday night. In addition, the Bulldogs had their 15-game Big South Conference winning streaking (counting last year's BSC Tournament) snapped. The last BSC team to beat Asheville was Charleston Southern last Feb.15, 79-70.
The Bulldogs have been beaten on the boards badly in the last two games. Coastal Carolina had a 10-rebound advantage Tuesday with CSU earning a 12-rebound edge on Thursday.
J.P. Primm had four steals in the game and increased his career total to 221. He needs three to move past Andre Smith (223) to become the school's all-time leader.
