JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – The High Point University men's basketball team advanced to the Big South Tournament semifinals after defeating No. 8 seed Gardner-Webb, 85-64 in the quarterfinals. The Panthers were led by
Kezza Giffa with a season-high 25 points after going 9-for-10 from the free throw line while adding three rebounds and four assists.
"It's always difficult to get the first one done, especially when you have a long layoff like we had," Head Coach
Alan Huss stated. "We had some rust to shake off. Gardner-Webb was ready… they were physical, probably more physical this time around than the first two times we played them. That bothered us a little bit… we weren't very sound with the basketball, but I was pleased that our guys found a way. I thought our bench in the first half was tremendous, Laye [Thiam] played really good minutes and brought us some energy and Terry [Anderson] did the same."
Site: Freedom Hall
Score: High Point 85, Gardner-Webb 64
Records: High Point (27-5, 14-2), Gardner-Webb (11-20, 5-11)
Giffa opened the game with a strong take from the top of the key for a left-handed layup.
Chase Johnston followed up with a deep three on the right wing to make it 5-3 in the first two minutes of action.
Gardner-Webb connected on three straight baskets to take a 9-6 lead, just under the 16-minute mark. Back-to back buckets from
Terry Anderson and
Abdoulaye Thiam put the Panthers back on top for the remainder of the game.
The Panthers held a steady lead through six minutes of play and took its largest lead of the half at 26-19 with two free throws from
D'Maurian Williams at the 7:29 mark.
In the last six minutes of the first half, High Point threw down three dunks with two identical alley-oops from Thiam.
Bobby Pettiford found Thiam in transition for both dunks with the first one coming at the 4:24 mark to make it 33-28 and the second lob occurring at the minute and a half mark in the first to make it 44-34.
In the last minute of the half, Giffa scored seven of the Panthers nine points as
Terry Anderson followed up for a tip-in layup off a missed three from Giffa in the last three seconds. High Point led 53-38 at the half with the help of Giffa's 18 points.
High Point remained steady in the second half and cruised through the final 20 minutes of the game. The Panthers took an 18-point lead in the first five minutes of the second half with a transition three from
Simon Hildebrandt.
Anderson continued to clean up around the rim and threw in a dunk off an HPU missed layup to keep High Point up by 18, 72-54.
A free throw from Giffa gave the Panthers their largest lead of the game by 21 points with just under nine minutes to go in the game. Four minutes down the stretch, Anderson secured his 16th point of the game for a season-high and finished as the second leading scorer of the day.
"Terry [Anderson] was terrific," Huss added. "He was as good defensively and on the glass as he was offensively. He finished some baskets around the rim and hit a three."
"He missed almost four months with a knee surgery and he got dropped into a team that already had roles. He wasn't playing his best, he wasn't in shape, and he was dealing with a little bit of post-surgical pain and we talked a lot about the new normal for him. All of that stuff makes it hard to find your way in the middle of the season but his resiliency this season in a lot of ways is the heart and soul of our team because of his willingness and his ability to just continue to fight even when things were not going well for him."
The Panthers worked the clock in the final minutes of the game and closed out game with a layup in the paint from Giffa.
As a team, High Point shot 50.0% from the field with 46 of the 85 points coming from the bench. Hildebrandt finished with a season-high 13 points after going 3-for-5 from the field and 3-for-3 from the line with three rebounds. Anderson led the game with a season-high eight rebounds.
UP NEXT:
High Point will play Radford in the Big South semifinals on Saturday, March 8 at 12:00 p.m. at Freedom Hall.
#GoHPU x #OnTheProwl
