WHEELING, W.Va. – The Concord University men's basketball team overcame a double-digit deficit in the first half and held off West Virginia State for a 92-84 win in the Mountain East Conference Tournament Quarterfinals Friday night at WesBanco Arena.
Concord faces top seed and nationally-ranked West Liberty 6:00 p.m. Saturday in the MEC Semifinals.
The Mountain Lions (17-10) dug themselves a 23-13 hole 10 minutes into the game as West Virginia State (15-13) capped a 14-4 run that span nearly six minutes.
Trailing by nine points, 26-17, the next three buckets for CU were three-pointers as junior forward
Ken Sallee, freshman forward
Kraig Gilbert and redshirt freshman guard
Brendan Hoffman combined on the triples to get Concord within 30-26 at the 4:42 mark of the first half.
Concord continued to trail until Hoffman got a bucket to go with 1:23 remaining in the first half to trim the margin to 36-35, and a reverse layup by Gilbert with less than 10 seconds remaining in the first half tied the game, 38-38.
Both teams scrapped for the lead early in the second half.
With Concord up 47-44, a layup from junior forward
Rene Diop and another triple from Hoffman allowed CU to start to separate itself.
The Mountain Lions led by at least four points, and consecutive transition layups from senior guard
Corey Boston gave Concord a 65-56 edge with 10:46 remaining.
A transition dunk by sophomore forward
Boubacar Djigo built Concord's first double-digit lead of the game, 77-67, with 6:51 left.
West Virginia State made its charge as it ripped off seven straight points to get within 81-78, but two missed foul shots by the Yellow Jackets with less than three minutes left was followed by two makes at the charity stripe by Hoffman to stretch the lead out to five points.
WVSU got the deficit back to three points, but freshman guard
Josiah Rickards scored five straight points with under a minute left to put the game away.
Rickards netted a career-high 19 points on 7-for-11 shooting. Boston added 17 points to go with eight boards.
Gilbert notched a double-double of 15 points and 10 rebounds (all defensive). Hoffman came off the bench with 14 points and Sallee had 12 points.
Djigo made it six double-figure scorers with 10 points and seven rebounds in 19 minutes.
After shooting just 35 percent in the first half, CU was 50 percent in the second half (20-for-40). The Mountain Lions finished at 42.5 percent for the game.
Seven of the 10 three-pointers for Concord came in the first half.
The Mountain Lions held WVSU to 2-for-13 from three-point distance.
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