The High Point University men's basketball team scored 60 points in the second half and overcame a halftime deficit in racing to a 90-71 victory over VMI on Saturday night in front of a packed house at the Millis Athletic Center.

HPU improved to 12-9 overall and 4-3 in Big South Conference play after holding the nation's highest scoring team in VMI (10-10, 2-4 Big South) well below their season scoring average of 93.3 points per game. The win was the third straight home victory for HPU who moved to 9-1 in the Millis Center this season.

Four Panthers reached double-digits led by 22 each from seniors Arizona Reid and Mike Jefferson. Jefferson keyed the second half HPU flurry scoring 18 of his points after halftime. Eugene Harris scored 14 points for High Point while Cruz Daniels netted a career best 16 points on a perfect 7-for-7 shooting performance from the floor.

Travis Holmes scored 25 in a losing cause for the Keydets followed by his twin brother Chavis with 16. Willie Bell added 15 points for VMI. The Keydets dropped their fourth straight game and third without the services of the national scoring leader Reggie Williams, who sat out the game with a leg injury.

"I was proud of how we made the necessary adjustments at halftime," said HPU head coach Bart Lundy, who is now just three wins away from the 200th of his coaching career. "We struggled handling the press in the first half and were just playing too quickly. We settled down after halftime and showed some poise. We were able to make some shots and were also able to turn things up ourselves on the defensive end. This was an important win to finish out the first half of the Big South season."

VMI ran out to an early lead scoring the first five points of the game. The Panthers committed 12 turnovers in the first half that resulted in 13 Keydet points. High Point consistently trailed by four to six points for most of the first half as VMI earned a 37-30 advantage at the break. Travis Holmes scored 14 to lead the Keydets while Reid answered with 12 for the Panthers.

High Point sprinted out of the gate in the second half outscoring VMI, 21-6, over the first seven minutes of play to grab a 51-43 advantage at the 13:11 mark. HPU got points from six different players in the run including six points by Daniels. The Panthers continued to build on their momentum leading by as much as 18 points (72-54) with 6:26 remaining.

The Keydets battled back scoring seven straight points to trim the deficit to 11 in less than a minute and got as close as eight points (79-71) at the 2:50 mark. The Panther defense shut VMI out the rest of the game closing with an 11-0 run to earn the final margin of victory.

For the game, High Point tallied a 46-25 rebounding advantage led by 16 from Reid, who became the first player in Big South Conference history to record over 1,800 points and 900 rebounds in a career. The Panthers also posted a 24-10 lead in assists. HPU shot 53.8 percent from the floor for the game including a blistering 61.1 percent shooting (22-36) in the closing period.

HPU begins the second half of their Big South slate on Wednesday at 7 p.m., in a rematch with Liberty. The Flames, who are tied with High Point at 4-3 in the league, edged the Panthers 51-55 on Jan. 26 in Lynchburg, Va.