Box Score BOX SCORE

The High Point University men's basketball team cut a 14-point deficit to three with under a minute to go but couldn't complete the comeback, taking a 71-63 loss to the Citadel on Tuesday night at McAlister Field House in Charleston, S.C. Junior Nick Barbour scored 20 points to lead the Panthers.

"You want to give yourself a chance to win on the road and I feel like we did that," said HPU head coach Scott Cherry. "We came back but, a foul here and a missed free throw there, and we didn't quite get there. It's a work in progress. We've got a lot of young kids and we've got three freshmen on the floor at times. It's an adjustment period with our mixture of veterans and freshmen."

With the loss, High Point is 2-2. It was the Citadel's first win of the season, improving the Bulldogs to 1-3.

The Citadel led 33-25 at halftime, and the Bulldogs' Austin Dahn and Matt Clark hit three pointers to put the Citadel up by 14. HPU reeled off the next six points on a pair of free throws from Barbour, a windmill dunk from Shay Shine and a layup by Du'Vaughn Maxwell to make it 39-31.

The Citadel had taken a 52-39 lead on a Zach Urbanus jumper with 8:08 remaining before Barbour hit a three and then one of two free throws a minute later to make it 52-43. After Citadel's Daniel Eykyn hit a layup, Xavier Martin hit two free throws, Tehran Cox hit a fastbreak layup and Earnest Bridges hit a free throw to make it 54-48, the Panthers cutting the lead to six for the first time since the first half. Bridges hit a pair of free throws with under 4:00 left to cut it to 56-52.

Barbour scored eight points over the final 2:42 for the Panthers. He stole the ball and laid it in to make it 64-61 and Cox hit a pair of free throws that made it 66-63, but that was the closest the Panthers would get. The Citadel completed 11-of-14 free throws over that span to seal the victory.

Upon the opening tip, the teams traded possessions before Shine finally hit the first basket, a layup at 18:39. After a missed three-point attempt by the Citadel's Dahn, Bridges hit a pair of free throws to make it 4-0 Panthers. The Bulldogs scored the next 14 points – including three-pointers by Cameron Wells and Urbanus – to prompt Cherry to call a timeout. The Panthers used the break to set up an 11-4 run of their own to bring it back to 18-15.

The Citadel's lead stayed under 10 points until a second-chance dunk from Morakinyo Williams made it 33-23 with under a minute to go. HPU had the final possession of the half and got a layup from Bridges to make it 33-25 at halftime.

The Citadel's Wells had racked up 14 points at the half, going 5-for-5 from the floor and 2-for-2 on free throws, and was the game's high scorer with 25 points. The Citadel outrebounded HPU 26-15 in the first half and 45-34 in the game.

Behind Barbour, Shine scored nine points and Maxwell had seven points and team-highs of eight rebounds and three blocks.

The High Point University men's basketball team is back at the Millis Center on Sunday when it hosts Hampton at 3 p.m. It will be the first-ever meeting between the two teams.