Concord Wins on Senior Day over UVa.-Wise, 79-69

ATHENS, W.Va. – The Concord University men's basketball sent its four seniors, Terry Hopewell, Rob Reed, Taylor Smith and Jametrius Wade out on top Saturday in the regular season finale at the Carter Center on Senior Day as it downed UVa.-Wise 79-69.

Concord, who had locked up first-round bye in the Mountain East Conference Tournament improves to 19-9 on the season and 14-8 in the league. UVa.-Wise falls to 4-24 overall and 2-20 in the MEC.

Senior guard Rob Reed led CU with 32 points, going over the 1,000-point plateau in the process. Reed now has 1,002 points in his career. Junior guard Aaron Miller finished with 13 points while Hopewell had 11 points and nine rebounds.

A 25-7 run by Concord to start the game was more than enough for the Mountain Lions as they never trailed in the game. Reed scored the first seven points of the run and 14 of 25 during the spurt to start his trek towards 1,000 points. Junior guard Michael Sanchez added two three-pointers and Miller connected on a triple during the run as well.

CU maintained a double-digit lead until the Cavaliers made it a 38-29 contest with 2:38 left in the first half. The Mountain Lions traded baskets with UVa.-Wise over the final two-plus minutes of the first half and took a 45-35 advantage to the locker room at halftime.

The Cavaliers got as close as five, 45-40, with 17:53 remaining in the game, but CU went on a 17-5 run to stretch its advantage back out to 62-45 with 12:16 left. This time, Hopewell and Reed combined for 14 of the 17 points. UVa.-Wise only cut the lead to single digits once more in the game.

While Reed nailed six three-pointers in the game, the eighth time this season he's hit five or more three-pointers in a game, it was a layup at the 4:32 mark of the second half that pushed the South Bend, Indiana over the 1,000-point mark.

Two days after UVa.-Wise's Matt Day scored an MEC record 49 points against West Virginia State, the Mountain Lions' big men did a stellar job of limiting Day to 19 points on 5-for-21 shooting. Furthermore, CU made it hard for Day to convert around the rim as he was 0-for-10 inside the three-point line.

Concord shot 47.6 percent from the game including 58.6 percent in the first half as it held UVa.-Wise to 38.2 percent on the afternoon. CU also held an advantage on the boards (37-34).
Dimitri Sousa led UVa.-Wise with 21 points.

The Mountain Lions will await the winner of the Charleston-Urbana game and will play the victorious team 8:15 p.m. Friday night at the Charleston Civic Center in the quarterfinal round of the MEC Tournament.