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The High Point University men's basketball team was within four at halftime but took a 90-70 loss to UNC Asheville on Thursday night at Kimmel Arena in Asheville, N.C. Junior Corey Law grabbed 14 rebounds, topping 500 for his career. Sophomore Xavier Martin led HPU with 14 points.

"We came out and played better tonight," said HPU head coach Scott Cherry. "The guys have been in the gym working and getting extra shots this week. We wanted to keep them off the glass and we did outrebound them. Asheville came out and made some plays in the second half – they shot 60 percent. That was a good team we played tonight. If we made more free throws we could have been in it at the end. We just need to get back to work and keep improving."

With the 14 rebounds, Law brought his career total to 507. He also scored eight points. Junior Branimir Mikulic and senior Shay Shine scored 13 points a piece for the Panthers. High Point was about even with UNC Asheville in most statistical categories except free-throw shooting: HPU went 16-for-33 (48.5 percent) from the line while UNC Asheville shot 25-for-32 (78.1 percent).

Asheville guard J.P. Primm led all scorers with 30 points and had five assists and five steals in the game. Junior swingman Jaron Lane scored 19 points and senior guard Matt Dickey scored 14 for the Bulldogs. The Bulldogs went 15-for-25 from the floor and 5-for-8 from beyond the arc in the second half.

High Point fell to 7-14 overall and 3-8 in the Big South Conference while UNC Asheville improved to 15-7 overall and 10-1 in league play.

Sophomore forward Travis Elliott made two nice plays in the opening minutes, scoring the first basket on a layup and blocking a Primm jumper. The block led to a jumper from Mikulic, who scored five of HPU's first seven points. The Panthers led by seven points three times in the first half: a second-chance basket by Devante Wallace made it 16-9, a jumper by Nick Barbour bounced high off the back of the rim and in to make it 20-13 and a wide-open three by Shine made it 23-16.

UNC Asheville closed the gap with three three-pointers by Primm. Keith Hornsby hit a trey with 6:29 left in the first, tying it for the first time at 25-25. The Bulldogs took their first lead, 29-28, when Primm stripped Xavier Martin and passed the ball to Lane for a layup. High Point took the lead back on a Shine jumper and a Law putback before Asheville scored the last seven points of the half to take a 36-32 lead into the break.

UNC Asheville was able to extend its lead to 10 points (45-35) early in the second half when Primm hit a three-pointer from the corner. High Point got within eight (47-39) two minutes later when Shine hit a layup but Asheville responded with a layup by Chris Stephenson and the Bulldogs led by double-digits the rest of the way.

After UNC Asheville's lead had grown to 19 (74-55) with just over five minutes left in the game, High Point got a three-point play from Martin and chipped at the Bulldogs' lead. Barbour hit three free throws with 3:18 left to make it 78-66 and that was the closest the Panthers would get. Primm hit four free throws followed by a three-point play and a three-pointer by Dickey that put the game out of reach.

Next up for the Panthers is a trip to Rock Hill, S.C., to take on Winthrop on Saturday at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcasted live on 1230 AM-WFMR and highpointpanthers.com and will have live video on the Big South Network.