March 4, 2011

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – UNCG opened the game on an 11-1 run and led wire-to-wire as the Spartans defeated Davidson, 71-64, in the first round of the Southern Conference Tournament on Friday afternoon. The Spartans will now face Western Carolina, the No. 1 seed in the North Division, in the quarterfinals on Saturday at 2 p.m.

The Spartans (7-23) were led by Trevis Simpson who had his first career double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds, while Brandon Evans added a dozen points. Kyle Randall had a great game as well as he posted 11 points, seven rebounds and six assists.

Simpson was honored prior to the game for earning Southern Conference All-Freshman Team honors earlier in the week.

Brendan McKillop paced the Wildcats (17-14) by scoring 14 points on 4-11 shooting, all from behind the arc. Despite shooting 1-13 from the field, JP Kuhlman added 11 points after going a perfect 9-9 from the free throw line. De'Mon Brooks nearly had a double-double as he posted nine points and 10 rebounds.

The Spartans came out on fire to start the game on an 11-1 run that included a pair of 3-pointers from Evans. That lead didn't last long though as the Wildcats immediately responded with a 9-0 run of their own to make it an 11-10 game six minutes into the contest.

UNCG would answer that run with one of its own to take a 10-point lead at 23-13 on a jumper by Brian Cole. That would be the Spartans' largest lead of the half as UNCG went into the locker room with a 32-24 lead at intermission.

The Spartans' stifling 2-3 zone defense proved effect all game long and especially in the first half. At the break, Davidson shot just 16.2 percent on 6-37 shooting. Davidson had 17 of its 29 rebounds on the offensive end in the first half, but converted those into just two second chance points.

UNCG seemed like it couldn't break away from the Wildcats by more than 10 points in the second half. The Spartans led by 10 on four separate occasions in the second half before finally getting over the hump with a 3 from Cole to take a 48-35 lead with 10:10 left in the game.

The Wildcats made a run to cut the Spartan lead down to six at 50-44, but UNCG responded with an 8-0 run to run its lead to 58-44 with only 4:28 left in the game. That would be the largest lead of the game for UNCG.

After a McKillop 3-pointer cut UNCG's lead to seven with two minutes left, Trevis Simpson responded by converting a traditional 3-point play on a spinning circus layup to push the lead back to 10.

Davidson tried to make a comeback in the final minutes, but weren't able to cut the Spartan lead to less than seven.

For the game, UNCG shot 46 percent on 23-50 shooting compared to just 24 percent for Davidson on 18-75 shooting from the field. The Wildcats had an amazing 28 offensive rebounds for the game too.

Fans wanting to listen to the broadcast of Saturday's game can tune to WZTK 101.1 FM or WCOG 1320 AM beginning at 1:30 p.m. Fans can also go to UNCGSpartans.com and listen to the audio through Spartan All Access.

AGATE

UNCG 71, Davidson 64

UNCG (7-23)
SIMPSON, Trevis 4-12 7-9 15; EVANS, Brandon 2-5 6-6 12; RANDALL, Kyle 3-7 5-6 11; BRACKETT, Aaron 4-7 0-0 8; HENRY, Aloysius 4-6 0-0 8; COLE, Brian 3-6 0-0 7; VAN DUSSEN, Korey 2-3 1-2 5; WILLIAMS, David 1-2 2-4 4; HENEGAR, Cody 0-2 1-2 1; PARKER, Drew 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-50 22-29 71.

DAVIDSON (17-14)
MCKILLOP, Brendan 4-11 2-3 14; KUHLMAN, JP 1-13 9-9 11; COCHRAN, Nik 3-17 1-1 9; BROOKS, De'Mon 2-8 5-6 9; COHEN, Jake 3-10 0-0 7; DRONEY, Tom 2-2 0-0 5; MANN, Clint 2-6 1-2 5; ALLISON, Ben 1-2 2-2 4; CZERAPOWICZ, Chris 0-4 0-0 0; BEN-EZE, Frank 0-0 0-0 0; DOWNING, Jordan 0-2 0-2 0; REIGEL, Will 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 18-75 20-25 64.

UNCG..........................   32   39  -   71
Davidson......................   24   40  -   64

3-point goals--UNCG 3-8 (EVANS, Brandon 2-3; COLE, Brian 1-2; SIMPSON, Trevis 0-3), Davidson 8-34 (MCKILLOP, Brendan 4-11; COCHRAN, Nik 2-12; DRONEY, Tom 1-1; COHEN, Jake 1-2; CZERAPOWICZ, Chris 0-3; KUHLMAN, JP 0-5). Fouled out--UNCG-None, Davidson-None. Rebounds--UNCG 40 (SIMPSON, Trevis 10), Davidson 48 (BROOKS, De'Mon 10). Assists--UNCG 14 (RANDALL, Kyle 6), Davidson 12 (COCHRAN, Nik 3; COHEN, Jake 3; KUHLMAN, JP 3). Total fouls--UNCG 20, Davidson 21. Technical fouls--UNCG-None, Davidson-None. SoCon Men's Basketball Tournament Game 1

- UNCG -