Concord Surges in Second Half to Defeat Salem, 98-84

ATHENS, W.Va. – The Concord University men's basketball team erased an eight-point, second-half deficit as it downed Salem, 98-84, in a non-conference game at the Carter Center Wednesday night.

Down 45-42 at halftime, CU (12-7) watched Salem (5-16) open up a 54-46 lead with 17:43 remaining in the game. The Mountain Lions began to surge shortly thereafter. A 12-2 run over a stretch of 2:13 gave Concord a 58-56 advantage.

Junior guard Kollin Tolbert began the run with a three-pointer before freshman guard Josiah Rickards cut the deficit to 56-51 on an elbow jumper. Tolbert added another triple before freshman forward Kraig Gilbert tied the game at 56-56 on a pair of foul shots. Sophomore forward Boubacar Djigo capped the run with a transition layup.

Salem was able to tie the game at 58-58 before another substantial run from Concord—this time a 16-2 spurt. Sophomore guard Georges Archer started the run with one of his two three-pointers in the game, and scored seven of his 12 points during the spurt.

A jump hook in the lane from junior forward Rene Diop took the lead to 74-60 at the 9:20 mark as CU led by double digits over the final nine minutes of the game.

With the Mountain Lions only down 9-8 five minutes into the game, Salem cracked off a 12-3 run to take its largest lead of the game at 10 points, 21-11. A three-pointer from senior guard Corey Boston tied the game at 23-23 at the 7:44 mark.

Neither team could get away from the other for the remainder of the first half, but it was Salem that scored the final four points of the first half to take the three-point lead into the intermission.

CU shot 61.1 percent in the second half on its way to shooting 52.8 percent for the game (38-for-72). CU canned seven of its 10 three-pointers in the second half, shooting 35.7 percent from the beyond the arc for the game.

Tolbert made seven of his final nine shots in the game as he was 8-for-14 from the floor in scoring 22 points. He tallied his first double-double of the season with 10 rebounds. Boston netted 18 points. Archer came off the bench to score 12 points. Rickards went for 10 points and redshirt freshman guard Brendan Hoffman tallied a career-best 10 points as he went 3-for-4 from three-point range.

Diop finished with nine points and four blocks for a second straight game.

Concord controlled the boards with a 45-33 advantage in rebounding.

The Mountain Lions travel to Point Park 4:00 p.m. Saturday as it returns to MEC play for the final seven games of the year.