In a battle of the top two men's basketball defenses in the Mountain East Conference, the University of Charleston's came out the stingiest.
The Golden Eagles held West Virginia Wesleyan to just 12 second-half points, besting the Bobcats 50-34 Thursday at the Charleston Catholic Athletic Center in the type of game rarely seen with the high-octane offenses of the MEC. It was the lowest point total the Golden Eagles have allowed this season.
For a defensive-minded coach like Charleston's Dwaine Osborne, a feat like that left him happy.
"It was satisfying," Osborne said. "I thought the kids played really hard. I thought they tried to do what we practiced and what we talked about. I felt like they knew the scouting report well and understood the blueprint we were trying to apply."
Avalanches of points aren't the style of either Charleston (13-10, 10-7 MEC) or WVWC (13-10, 8-9). The two teams not only sport the conference's toughest defenses - Wesleyan entered the game first in the MEC, allowing 69.2 points per game, UC second at 69.9 allowed - but also the bottom two offenses. Charleston is 11th in the 12-team conference at 73.4 points per game, Wesleyan last at 72.5 per game.
Neither team came close to those totals, but the Golden Eagles shut the door on the Bobcats in the second half. Wesleyan, which had won two of three entering Thursday night, could manage just five baskets on 17 attempts (29.4 percent) and missed all seven 3-point attempts in the final 20 minutes. The 12 points Charleston allowed Wesleyan in Thursday's second half was even better than the 16 points UC allowed the Bobcats in the first half of their first game on Jan. 16.
"I thought they played harder than us," Bobcats coach Gary Nottingham said. "Obviously, we missed a boatload of shots. We just played bad. It was just a bad performance from us, and I think their defense had a lot to do with it."
Charleston, which won its second straight game following a three-game losing streak, took the lead to stay following the game's only real offensive flurry. For a short while, it looked like Wesleyan would be the one holding UC to a tiny scoring total. The Bobcats took an 8-2 lead with Charleston making just 1 of its first 4 shots.
That changed quickly on the strength of a 14-0 Golden Eagles run. That streak included a pair of the five first-half 3-pointers UC hit, and Charleston built as much as a 12-point lead when Justin Coleman's layup with 2:05 left in the half gave UC a 32-20 lead. The Golden Eagles went into halftime up 32-22.
The Bobcats scored the opening basket of the second half on a Chris Dewberry jumper but could score just one more basket for the next nearly 6 minutes. The Golden Eagles smothered Wesleyan's top player, 6-foot-8, 250-pound forward Tanner McGrew, in the second half. McGrew led all scorers with 16 points but scored just five after halftime. And while McGrew led Division II with 12.7 rebounds per game, he pulled down just five Thursday, and none off the offensive glass.
Nottingham credited Charleston's defensive rotations for those problems. UC senior forward Aleksander Kesic said those rotations were a major point of emphasis in preparing to face WVWC.
"We worked on it a lot," he said. "The coaches had us in the mindset that we had to rotate and be aware of where the shooters are and when the ball goes into the post. The coaches did a tremendous job preparing us for this game."
Kesic led UC with 14 points, while Justin Coleman came off the bench for nine points and a game-high 10 rebounds. The Golden Eagles won the rebounding battle 32-25. UC's scoring also was much more balanced, with eight of nine players scoring at least one basket, as opposed to just four of 11 players for Wesleyan.
The Bobcats still came out of Thursday's game at No. 1 on the MEC defensive charts. WVWC holds a 71.52 points-against average to Charleston's 71.65, but Osborne is fine with that, considering he scored the season sweep over Wesleyan.
"I was really pleased with our effort," he said. "If we outrebound people and hold people to 36 percent [shooting], I don't care what the total point number is, we're going to win a lot of games."