GREENSBORO, NC Stephen Curry had 23 points and Davidson made 5-of-6 at the line in the final 2:10 to pull away for a 66-63 win over UNC Greensboro in Southern Conference men's basketball action Monday night at Fleming Gym.

Curry, a freshman from Charlotte, NC, topped the 20-point mark for the fourth time in nine games this season. He was averaging 18.9 points per game entering the contest and has now scored in double digits in eight of nine.

UNCG's Kyle Hines had game-highs with 30 points and 15 rebounds, his 29th consecutive game scoring in double figures, extending his school record. Hines made nine of his first 10 from the floor on his way to 22nd game of 20 or more points in his career. It was his 25th career double-double. The 6-6 junior from Sicklerville, NJ also had five blocked shots to give him 212 for his career, extending his school record.

It was Hines second 30-point game of the season already, having scored 38 in the season-opener at Marshall. He is just the fifth player in school history to score 30 or more points in a game twice during the same season, joining Robert Bryant, Bruce Shaw, Marvin Dawson and Courtney Eldridge. It was the 39th 30-point game in the program's 40-year history. Through Monday's action, Hines is now averaging 22.1 points and an even 10.0 rebounds per contest.

While Hines was shooting 13-for-16 from the floor for the night, the rest of the Spartans struggled from the perimeter. UNCG was just 2-of-12 from three-point range in the second half, and one of those came when Ricky Hickman knocked down a trey at the buzzer for the final three-point margin. Outside of Hines, the rest of the team was 11-for-38 from the field and all of the 63 points came from UNCG's five starters.

“With our guards struggling to score right now, teams can just play inside and concentrate on Kyle,” said UNCG coach Mike Dement. “We had to guard all five of their guys out there, and that it made it tough for us. Curry is off to a great start as a freshman and will be a good player in this league. He makes the other guys around him better because you have to worry about him so much that it spreads the floor that much more.

“We had some open shots and we had some good looks. If one of those goes down, we would have been ok.”

UNCG's Kevin Oleksiak chipped in with 12 points, 10 of those came in the first half.. Davidson also got 19 points from forward Boris Meno, who spent a good portion of the second half on the bench in foul trouble.

Davidson took a 61-59 lead on thwo free throws by Thomas Sander with just under two minutes to play. UNCG's Hines was then fouled on a move to the bucket with 1:34 left, but made just one of two at the line.

Stephen Curry then drove the lane and hit a reverse lay-up to take a 63-60 lead with 1:02 left. Oleksiak missed a three-pointer on UNCG's next possession, but the Spartans' Ben Stywall blocked Curry's drive down the lane with 20 seconds left.

Hines was then fouled as he drove the floor with 14.1 seconds left. Exhausted, he missed both and UNCG was forced to foul. William Archamabult promptly knocked down both from the line to put the game out of reach.

UNCG's defense was swarming at the outset as the Wildcats missed 10 of their first 12 from the floor. The Spartans opened up a 12-4 lead in the process over the game's first seven minutes. In the first nine minutes of the contest, UNCG held a 14-4 advantage in rebounds, including five by UNCG point guard Dwayne Johnson, the smallest guy on the court at 5-9.

Davidson slowly pulled back in it, however, knocking down five three-pointers over the final 13 minutes of the first half and grabbing 10 offensive boards in the half. Curry's step-back three-pointer from the right corner with 3:55 remaining in the half got the Wildcats within a point, 25-24.

After a bucket by Hines his 12th point of the first half Thomas Sander knocked down a three-pointer from the left wing to tie at 27-27. Davidson the scored seven of the final 10 points of the first half to take a 34-30 lead into the locker room, despite the fact that it was shooting just 38 percent from the floor in the first half and the Spartans were shooting an even 50 percent.

Davidson held the lead, although the margin was no more than five, for the first eight minutes of the second half.  After four tries at taking the lead, UNCG finally got it back, 44-43, on a bucket by Hines with 11:17 to play. But Davidson ran off five straight, three on a bomb by Curry, to regain the lead, 48-44.

UNCG got the lead back again with 4:35 to play when Hickman knocked down a three-pointer in transition from the right corner to make it 56-55. But a pair of Davidson free throws by Jason Richards gave the Wildcats the lead right back just 10 seconds later.

UNCG battled back to tie it again on Hines' 28th and 29th points of the game with a bucket in the paint with 2:02 to play to set the stage for the thrilling ending.

UNCG will travel to Furman for a 4 pm Southern Conference match-up on Saturday.

AGATE

DAVIDSON 66, UNCG 63

DAVIDSON (6-3, 2-0)

CURRY, Stephen 9-22 2-5 24; MENO, Boris 9-14 0-1 19; RICHARDS, Jason 2-6 4-4 8; ARCHAMBAULT, Wm. 2-10 2-2 8; SANDER, Thomas 2-7 2-2 7; BARR, Bryant 0-0 0-0 0; LOVEDALE, Andrew 0-3 0-0 0; GOSSELIN, Max Paul 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 24-64 10-14 66.

UNCG (2-6, 1-1)

HINES, Kyle 13-16 4-9 30; OLEKSIAK, Kevin 4-13 3-3 12; HICKMAN, Ricky 3-11 1-2 9; STYWALL, Ben 3-6 1-2 7; JOHNSON, Dwayne 1-2 2-2 5; AKINOSHO, Matt 0-0 0-0 0; BROWN, Pete 0-0 0-0 0; TONEY, Kendall 0-1 0-0 0; KOIVISTO, Mikko 0-5 0-0 0. Totals 24-54 11-18 63.

Halftime: Davidson 34-30. 3-point goals--Davidson 8-22 (CURRY, Stephen 4-9; ARCHAMBAULT, Wm. 2-7; MENO, Boris 1-2; SANDER, Thomas 1-1; GOSSELIN, Max Paul 0-1; RICHARDS, Jason 0-2), UNCG 4-17 (HICKMAN, Ricky 2-7; JOHNSON, Dwayne 1-1; OLEKSIAK, Kevin 1-6; KOIVISTO, Mikko 0-3). Fouled out--Davidson-None, UNCG-None. Rebounds--Davidson 33 (ARCHAMBAULT, Wm. 6; MENO, Boris 6), UNCG 44 (HINES, Kyle 15). Assists--Davidson 11 (CURRY, Stephen 4), UNCG 12 (JOHNSON, Dwayne 6). Total fouls--Davidson 16, UNCG 17. Technical fouls--Davidson-None, UNCG-None. A-1178

SIDELINES: Ben Stywall had his third double-digit rebound effort in the last four games. He pulled 11 boards in Monday's loss to tie his season-high... After UNCG's initial 10-rebound margin, the Spartans only had a plus-one advantage the rest of the night... When Kyle Hines went over 100 career steals in Thursday's loss at Hampton, he entered some rare air. Hines is the only active college player with 1,000 career points, 500 career rebounds, 200 career blocks and 100 career steals. What's more impressive, is that of the 19 college players to achieve the mark in the last 10 seasons, Hines did it the fastest more than 30 games faster than any other player including the likes of Sheldon Williams, Shane Battier and Kenyon Martin... it was the 16th time in Hines' career he has had five or more blocks in a game... UNCG plays four Southern Conference games this season before January 1. As far back as UNCG records have dates attached to the results (mid-1970's), UNCG has played just four conference games before January 1 prior to this season.

- UNCG -