Dec. 5, 2007
Final Stats
CULLOWHEE, N.C. - North Carolina Central Uniiversity was within one point of Western Carolina University late in the first half, but the host Catamounts pulled away from the Eagles for a cozy 84-64 victory on Wednesday inside the Ramsey Center in Cullowhee, N.C.
NCCU (1-10) was paced by junior guard Bryan Ayala as he equalled a season-high with 23 points, while adding six rebounds and five steals. Senior forward Charles Futrell contributed 18 points and a team-best seven rebounds for the Eagles, while sophomore forward Joshua Worthy and junior guard Philip Branch chipped in seven points each.
Western Carolina (3-5) was led by Michael Porrini with a season-high 17 points, 15 of which came in the critical first half. Fellow freshman Blake Gallagher recorded a double-double with 11 points and a game-high 12 rebounds for the Catamounts.
NCCU led early thanks to a jumper by rookie center Marius Vaskys to provide a 5-3 advantage at 17:40. The Eagles remained close most of the first half and trailed by only one point with the score 21-20 following a basket by Ayala with 8:10 remaining in the first half.
WCU, however, blew the game open by out-scoring the Eagles 20-7 in the final eight minutes of the opening stanza to take a 41-27 cushion into the locker room. Porrini had nine of his team's 20 points during the run.
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THE HERALD-SUN NEWSPAPER: Western Carolina tops NCCU
By MIKE POTTER : The Herald-Sun
mpotter@heraldsun.com
Dec 6, 2007
CULLOWHEE -- N.C. Central coach Henry Dickerson went into Wednesday night's game against Western Carolina with two nagging worries about his N.C. Central basketball team.
The Eagles hadn't been shooting free throws well and had been turning the ball over too much. Those problems seemed solved against WCU, but the Catamounts just had too many offensive weapons and too much rebounding.
Michael Porrini's 17 points led three players in double figures, and everybody on the WCU roster scored had at least four points as the Catamounts rolled to a 84-64 victory in the first meeting between the two teams.
Blake Gallagher added 11 points and 12 rebounds for WCU (3-5), which broke a three-game losing streak with the victory, while Brandon Giles chipped in 10. Bryan Ayala tied his season high with 23 points and Charles Futrell added 18 for NCCU (1-10), which lost its fifth straight game. All of the Eagles' 10 losses have been on the road in NCCU's first season in Division I.
"We played hard again like we always do, but we didn't play smart," Dickerson said. "Our defensive rotation was bad and we weren't where we were supposed to be a lot. It looks good in practice, but it's hard to simulate what we see in a game.
"We could play somebody like Duke or Florida 30 times, and in our best game we might lose by 25. But against teams like Western Carolina and Towson [which beat the Eagles 74-52], we know we have a chance to win if we play our best game. Even if we lose this kind of game by five or six points, we could point to one or two things we could have done better. But we shouldn't be losing by 20. We've got to get some leadership, and it has to come from their peers and not the coaching staff."
The Eagles shot 72.7 percent from the free-throw line -- much better than their previous average of 59.0 -- and had a season low 16 turnovers.
But WCU out-shot the Eagles from the floor 45.3 percent to 37.5, including 10-for-28 from 23-point range. The Catamounts won the board battle 46-32 and turned the ball over 13 times with 19 assists.
"We needed a win and we got the job done tonight," said WCU coach Larry Hunter, a former N.C. State assistant who picked up his 536th career win as a head coach. "We know Futrell and Ayala are capable scorers, and Coach Dickerson's teams always play hard.
"We did a much better job on defense, and we hit some big 3-pointers. It was good to see us execute the way we did tonight."
Western led 41-27 at halftime, the Catamounts' biggest lead of the first 20 minutes. Porrini had 12 points at the half for WCU, while Ayala's nine led the Eagles.
"We just didn't get a good enough effort tonight," Ayala said. "And it was one of those games when we had a chance to win. We like to trap a lot, and they hurt us with open 3-pointers.
"We had a long bus ride to get here today, but that's no excuse. We ought to be used to taking long trips on the road by now."
NCCU led 5-3 on a Marius Vaskys jumper with 17:33 left in the first half, but a Porrini 3-pointer at the 16:39 mark -- the second of four 3-pointers for WCU's first 12 points -- put the Catamounts up 6-5.
WCU led only 21-20 following Ayala's drive to the basket with 8:10 left in the half, but took control with a 16-5 run over the next seven minutes.
NCCU was never closer than 12 points back in the second half. The Catamounts' biggest lead was 66-38 on a Tim Magowan 3-pointer with 9:19 left.
"We could have played better defense tonight," Futrell said. "I feel like our morale is good, and we seem like we're ready to go at the start of every game. "We're just not executing the way we should. This is the kind of game we could have won, and we let it get away."
NOTES -- Dickerson dropped to 5-2 against WCU including his tenure as head coach at Chattanooga. ... NCCU's next game is at Akron on Saturday at 7 p.m. ... WCU is idle until a Dec. 15 game at Indiana. ... The Eagles' next home game is on Dec. 29 against Houston Baptist in the opening round of the RTP Hilton Classic.
