HIGH POINT, N.C. – In a close battle through the first half between the Panthers and the Bobcats, HPU pulled out another 100-point game with their second half scoring momentum. High Point took care of business with a 100-83 win over visiting Lees-McRae.
Site: Qubein Center
Score: High Point 100, Lees-McRae 83
Records: High Point (3-0, 0-0), Lees-McRae (1-2, 0-0)
G.G. Smith – " We're excited about a win, we're glad to be 3-0. I would like to give a coach Steve harden and Lees-McRae a lot of credit. I've known Steve for a long time, he was a manager for me at Tennessee tech when I was an assistant coach there so I knew his team would be tough matchup for us. They're extremely athletic, they're extremely deep and they're going to be pretty good in their conference in the Division II Conference Carolinas league, so we knew it was going to be a tough game. Our guys you know, gave up too many points in the first half, 54 points is way too many points, but the guys really locked in and we defended and we rebounded in the second-half. If you take away the last two minutes of the of the game, you know we only give up give up 19 points in the second half which is really really good for our guys. I thought this the first half we really weren't defending, and I thought they were playing harder than us and our guys came back and we responded in the second-half a lot better."
Jaden House got the Panthers going with a lay-up and three-pointer as
Bryson Childress followed up with a three from Steph Curry range.
Lees-McRae stayed with High Point through most of the first half, taking the lead with a three pointer from Nico Ashley to go up 22-21. From there, the Bobcats went on a run to go up by eight.
Lees-McRae took their largest lead of the game at the four-minute mark, going up by 10 before the Panthers would close the gap to two before the half.
The Panther run before the half was initiated by back-to-back threes from
Abdoulaye Thiam, who tabbed two of his seven threes on the night to bring some light back to the Panther offense.
The second half witnessed a complete shift in the HPU mentality. The team came out aggressive on both the defensive and offensive ends, opening with a 10-2 run through the first six minutes of play.
Thiam scored eight straight points, before assisting on an alley-oop dunk to
Zack Austin on a fastbreak. With the fans already ecstatic, Austin rocked the Qubein Center with a turnaround dunk off a steal from the Bobcats top of the key.
High Point did not let off through the rest of the game, reaching their largest lead of the night, 25, with Thiam's seventh three.
A free throw from
Alex Holt tabbed the Panthers 100
th and final point of the game with two minutes left of play.
Up Next: High Point will head west for a week out in Las Vegas, Nevada and San Juan Capistrano, California, first for a matchup Friday at UNLV at 7 p.m. (PST) followed by a two day event at the SoCal Challenge.
#GoHPU
