Despite a furious second half rally, the High Point University men's basketball team came up on the short end of an 85-73 decision versus Holy Cross in their season opening game at the William & Mary Tip-Off Classic.
Sophomore Arizona Reid scored a career-high 21 points for the Panthers (0-1) and also hauled in a team best seven rebounds in the season debut. Senior Issa Konare also posted a career best with 16 points while fellow senior Akeem Scott added 17 points, six rebounds and five assists.
Holy Cross (1-0) saw a trio of players score 20 or more points led by 22 from Kevin Hamilton, who also pulled down nine rebounds. Keith Simmons tallied a double-double finishing with 21 points and 10 rebounds, including 18 points in the first half.
The two squads went back-and-forth against each other in the opening 10 minutes with both teams holding a lead. With HPU leading 20-18, the Crusaders grabbed the momentum on the strength of a 19-7 run over the next six minutes of play. During the run, a young Panther squad committed several unfortunate miscues that resulted in breakaway buckets for HC. Holy Cross held a 45-33 advantage at halftime.
High Point's struggles continued at the start of the second half, as Holy Cross pushed its advantage to 19 points, 61-42, at the 13:33 mark on a pair of free throws. However, a determined Panther squad refused to quit and slowly began to chip away at the deficit.
Over the next six minutes of action, HPU outscored the Crusaders 18-4 trimming the margin to just four points, 65-61 with 7:12 remaining. Reid and Scott sparked the surge by the Panthers scoring several of the baskets, assisting on others and serving as disruptive forces on the defensive end.
Holy Cross finally settled down scoring the next seven points to push back ahead by 11 points with just over five minutes left to play. From that point, the two squads traded baskets as HPU would get no closer than eight points. The Crusaders connected on free throws down the closing stretch to hold on for the victory.
"We played hard and refused to quit and I was proud of our effort," said HPU head coach Bart Lundy. "We dug ourselves a big hole and it was just too much of an obstacle. One thing we definitely have to do is rebound the ball better. That really hurt us in the game. I thought we struggled a little on offense in the first half, but once we settled down and took care of the ball, we really started to make some strong offensive plays. Hopefully, we will learn from this game and build on it tomorrow night."
For the game, Holy Cross shot 52.7 percent from the floor (29 of 55) while HPU finished at 47.5 percent (29-61). The Panthers drained seven treys while limiting the Crusaders to just four. Both teams struggled with turnovers with High Point finishing with 19 and Holy Cross committing 20. HC out-rebounded HPU 45-29 including a 21-12 edge on the offensive glass.
High Point will return to action on Saturday in the consolation game of the William & Mary Tip-Off Classic at 6 p.m. against the loser of Friday's second game between host William & Mary and Maine.
