ATHENS, W.Va. – The Concord University men's basketball team exploded for 58 points in the second half on its way to a 105-76 victory over Wheeling in a Mountain East Conference Saturday afternoon at the Carter Center.
Up 47-39 at halftime, Concord (7-6, 6-3 MEC) watched the Cardinals (6-10, 1-8 MEC) trim the deficit to six with 18:21 remaining. However, a three-pointer from senior guard
Corey Boston ignited an 18-6 run over the next nearly five minutes. Senior forward
Amare Smith chipped in back-to-back buckets, including a putback dunk to grow the lead to 58-45 at the 16:18 mark.
Wheeling stabilized the game and got the deficit back to 11 points, 60-49, with 15:12 remaining. But, a three-pointer from freshman forward
Kraig Gilbert and consecutive scores from junior forward
Rene Diop upped the lead to 18 points, 67-49.
At the 10:45 mark of the second half, junior forward
Ken Sallee injected himself into the game by scoring 10 straight Concord points. Sallee started with a fastbreak layup before connecting on back-to-back three-pointers. And he finished the run with an alley-oop dunk from Boston.
Sallee continued to stay hot as he made two more three-pointers just 27 seconds apart to take the lead to 31 points, 90-59, with 6:35 remaining.
The 31-point lead was the largest of the game as Concord coasted to a 29-point victory.
The Mountain Lions led by as much as 11 points in the first half, 34-23, after one of five first-half three-pointers from junior guard
Kollin Tolbert. Wheeling answered with a 10-0 run to get within 34-33 with 4:04 left in the first half.
A three-pointer from sophomore guard
Georges Archer stretched the lead back to seven points, and Tolbert closed the half with another triple.
Concord finished the game 16-for-30 from three-point range—the most triples in a game in over three years. Sallee and Tolbert each made five three-pointers. Gilbert added three triples.
Spurred by his strong first half, Tolbert netted 20 points in the game on 7-of-11 shooting. Sallee came off the bench for a career-best 19 points on 7-for-10 shooting.
Boston and Gilbert each had 15 points with Boston tallying a double-double as he added 11 assists to go with five rebounds. Gilbert tied his career high with five blocks. Diop rounded out the double-figure scorers with 12 points on 6-of-8 shooting.
The Mountain Lions shot a blistering 56.9 percent for the game (37-for-65) as it made 60.6 percent (20-for-33) after halftime.
CU held down Wheeling—after the Cardinals shot 50 percent in the first half—to 38.8 percent in the second half.
The Mountain Lions welcome Charleston to the Carter Center 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
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