After taking its lumps from three ranked Division II teams in a row, the University of Charleston team needed a reward of some sort.
The Golden Eagles earned it Tuesday night, in the form of a 76-51 beatdown of Shepherd at the Civic Center.
There was no sliver of doubt in this one. The Eagles (7-7, 4-4 Mountain East) took a 7-0 lead, stretched it to 20-9, led 37-25 at halftime and bumped it to 49-28 just five minutes into the second half.
The Rams (8-6, 3-5) rolled over West Virginia State in the last 10 minutes Sunday in winning 94-81, but played nowhere near that level Tuesday.
"We needed that," said UC coach Dwaine Osborne. "We played Wheeling [Jesuit], ranked in the new poll today 24th in the country, Fairmont moved up to 3 and West Liberty [remained at] 1; that's been our last three teams.
"We've been playing pretty good competition. We let a tough one get away Sunday against Fairmont, that hurt. We were able to get back in a little rhythm tonight, so that was good."
Considering that the MEC now has three teams in the top 25 for the first time, that makes UC the first team to play three ranked MEC teams in a row. In a seven-day stretch, the Eagles lost 71-62 to Wheeling, 78-65 to West Liberty and 66-65 to Fairmont.
The Eagles said "enough" in emphatic fashion, shooting 57.6 percent from the floor to the Rams' 33.3 percent. The count was a bit more lopsided in the second half, 62.1 percent to 30.8 percent.
The scoresheet was a monument to balance - Aleksander Kesic led UC with 13 points, followed by Justin Coleman, Cameron Dozier and Tino diTrapano with 11 apiece and Jevonte Hughes and Darrion Stokes-Graham with 10 each.
Coleman and Hughes had 10 rebounds apiece, as UC outrebounded Shepherd 37-28.
"Coleman had a double-double, Jevonte had a double-double and Aleks, I don't feel like they had an answer for him," Osborne said.
Especially with Shepherd's AJ Carr on the bench half the game with foul trouble. Carr, a 6-foot-6 sophomore, riddled State for 25 points, 17 rebounds and eight assists on Sunday. Playing just 20 minutes Tuesday, he was held to four points, two rebounds and two assists.
Carr's struggles helped the 6-8 duo of Kesic, a senior, and former Middle Tennessee player Justin Coleman dominate down low. They combined to go 11 of 18 from the floor.
"Coach told us, 'If you're tired of losing, change it,' " Coleman said. "So we had to do things different from that. We had to execute, and it started with the bigs. We had to rebound and finish plays."
Coleman's double-double brought him to a 9.6 scoring average, fourth on the team, and he leads the team in rebounding at 7.9. He is hitting an even 50 percent from the floor.
He averaged six points and six rebounds per game as a freshman at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and signed with MTSU, but was dismissed in August before landing at UC.
"We got him really late," Osborne said. "We have a buddy who is an assistant at a juco in Mississippi, and he told us about him. I don't know how all the other stuff transpired, but [the juco assistant] was the one that kind of made us aware of him. We were fortunate to get him and he's a great kid."