Box Score BOX SCORE

The High Point University men's basketball team couldn't overcome an early double-digit deficit and took a 79-65 loss to Wofford in Spartanburg, S.C. on Saturday night. Nick Barbour scored 18 points and Shay Shine scored 17 to lead the Panthers.

"I don't know what the reason is that we came out so slow in the first half, but we came out in the second half and scored almost 50 points and outscored them," said HPU head coach Scott Cherry. "We just didn't play with as much intensity in the first half."

"Wofford is a good team and they have played good teams in tough environments," said Cherry. "We can't come out like that against a team as good as that. If we played like we did in the second half for the full 40 minutes we would have given ourselves a chance to win."

High Point fell to 5-4 with the loss while Wofford improved to 5-6. The Panthers are 2-0 in Big South Conference play.

Wofford's Kevin Giltner and Noah Dahlman each scored 18 points to lead Wofford. Tim Johnson had 14 points and a game-high eight rebounds for the Terriers.

The Panthers started the game cold, missing their first seven shots to go down 16-0 before Du'Vaughn Maxwell scored HPU's first points on a pair of foul shots. The Panthers had committed nine turnovers in that span. Wofford led 21-4 with just under 10 minutes left in the first half when Dahlman finished a three-point play. Five minutes later it was 32-12 when Barbour hit a pull-up jumper. The Panthers shot just 29 percent (6-for-21) from the floor in the first half while Wofford shot 71 percent (17-for-24). The Terriers led 43-16 at the break.

Wofford came out with the first six points of the second half before Maxwell put back a Xavier Martin shot and Shine hit a pair of free throws to make it 49-20. That started a 17-4 Panthers run that included another bucket by Shine and a trey from Barbour that made it 53-32. After Wofford scored five, the Panthers went on another 10-2 run capped by a steal and a layup by Barbour that made it 60-42 with under eight minutes left in the game.

After Wofford got its lead back to 25 (70-45), the Panthers whittled away in the final minutes to get it to 13 (75-62) when Barbour hit a three with 57 seconds remaining. Martin hit a three in the final minute to get Wofford's lead down to 11, but that was the closest HPU would get.

The Panthers outscored Wofford, 49-36, in the second half on 61 percent (17-for-28) shooting, but Wofford shot 59 percent (10-for-17) to maintain a strong lead throughout the half. Wofford shot 66 percent (27-for-41) in the game.

High Point University is back in action on Tuesday when the Panthers travel to Georgia to take on the Bulldogs in Athens, Ga., at 7 p.m. The game will be televised live on Comcast Sports South.