PEMBROKE — With turnovers piling up and defensive lapses throughout Wednesday night’s game against Lander, The University of North Carolina at Pembroke men’s basketball team wasn’t at its best.
But the Braves still won by 14 points against the Bearcats, capping a stretch of three games in five days with an 83-69 victory for their fifth straight win.
“We’ve had a lot of games this week and I think human nature kind of crept in during the second half where we coasted a little bit and allowed them to get some momentum,” UNCP coach Ben Miller said.
“But when you can win by double digits in this league, knowing that you can play a lot better, that’s not bad. It’s not going to be great every night.”
Despite the second-half struggles, the Braves (14-4, 7-2 PBC) were never threatened on the scoreboard. They made sure of that with a dominant first half, scoring 16-straight points and using a 26-4 run to take a commanding 20-point lead into the break.
“I thought in the first half we did a lot of good things,” Miller said. “We have to be better, and we’ll have to be a lot better when we play at their place. I thought their 1-3-1 (zone) bothered us in the second half and got us out of rhythm.
“We’re going to see a lot of different zones this year. It seems to be the trend in basketball. Whether it’s 2-3, matchup or 1-3-1, that’s something we’ll have to work on moving forward.”
The Bearcats (5-11, 2-5) forced 20 turnovers, rallying to cut the deficit to 14 early in the second half. But the Braves answered with a 9-2 run that swelled the lead back out to 21 after a hook shot by Carson Mounce.
“I liked the fact that our guys are playing unselfish,” Miller said. “We turned it over a lot, but we did have 22 assists. That’s a good sign. You see Quamain Rose passing up a good shot to get a better one and that’s a good sign because the guys are sharing the ball. We’re just careless and we have to clean it up.”
Nigel Grant, Mike Smith and Andrew Evans scored 14 points each to lead the Braves. Rose took another step forward in regaining his all-American status, stuffing the stat sheet with eight points, seven assists and six rebounds. Freshman Akia Pruitt tallied 13 points and eight rebounds.
While he was happy with his team’s willingness to share the ball on the offensive end, Miller said the Braves must be more consistent on the defensive end.
“I like our chemistry and unselfishness,” Miller said. “Both units had some lulls defensively in the second half so that’s something moving forward where we need to get the guys’ attention a little bit.
Chris Tate and J.R. Washington scored a game-high 16 points each for the Bearcats, who cut the lead to single digits on a dunk by Tate with 47 seconds left but would get no closer. West Bladen alum Rahu Purdie scored 11 points, dished out three assists and nabbed three steals.
The Braves finished the game with a 40-24 advantage on the boards, including a 24-9 disparity in the opening half.
UNCP led 50-30 at the break.
The Braves will be back in action on Saturday when they hit the road to battle USC Aiken (12-4, 6-3).
