Charleston used a dominant second half, led by a tough defensive performance and several big plays from a number of players down the stretch, to pull away late for a 71-61 victory over Notre Dame College on Saturday.
The win was the third in a row for Charleston (12-9, 6-9 Mountain East Conference), and avenged an earlier loss this season to the Falcons.
"I thought we were phenomenal in the second half," UC coach Dwaine Osborne said. "It was a really good defensive effort overall. To hold them the way we did in the second half was just great. I was really proud of their effort."
Coming into the game, Charleston was focused on trying to slow down Notre Dame's Will Vorhees and K.T. Taylor - the Mountain East's two leading scorers who came into Saturday's game both averaging more than 20 points per game. After knocking down three 3-pointers within the first two minutes of the game, Taylor was limited to just two makes on seven attempts the rest of the way and Vorhees was limited to just 11 points on 3-of-12 shooting.
That defensive showing against the Falcons' two stars helped Charleston hold Notre Dame to just six made field goals on 26 attempts through the final 20 minutes.
"We came into it looking really hard at the scouting report. We all knew what our assignments were and I had a good idea of what [Vorhees] liked to do, how to defend against it," senior forward Justin Coleman said. "It was really a team effort, and we stayed mentally strong and kept fighting for 40 minutes."
And while they did a lot with their defense, the Golden Eagles were running efficiently on offense as well - even without leading scorer Elliott Cole, who did not dress for the game.
UC faced an uphill climb from the outset thanks to a sluggish start that saw the Golden Eagles fall behind by 13 points midway through the first half. But thanks to plays from Keir Anderson, Jaylen Hinton and a few others, UC was able to trim that lead to a five-point deficit heading into the locker room for halftime.
"That was a huge shift for us after the way we started. We felt good going into the half like we did because we felt we had the momentum back with us," Osborne said. "We were really fortunate because they had hit a lot of shots in the first half, but I thought guys like Jaylen were big for us getting back into it like we did."
Charleston came back to open the second half on an 8-0 run to grab its first lead of the game and went on another 11-3 run a few minutes later to help extend the advantage more in its favor.
A big part of that came from the many ways the Golden Eagles were effective at scoring in the game. UC was getting into the open court for quick layups in transition, going through their sets in the halfcourt and finding open shots and doing what they needed to do to get the ball into the hands of their playmakers like Anderson, who led all scorers with 25 points.
"Any time we were able to get a stop, I felt like we were able to get some great looks," Osborne said. "Keir hit some big shots, he's such a talented offensive player."
UC outscored Notre Dame in the paint, 37-6.
Coleman was a big part of Charleston's success in slowing down Vorhees defensively and also scored eight points to go with 10 rebounds in the victory.
Ja'Sean Lewis led Notre Dame with 17 points while Taylor and Drew Scarberry both added 15.
Contact Michael Carvelli at 304-348-4810 or michael.carvelli@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @carvelli3.