For the first time this season, the nomadic University of Charleston men's basketball team played at the Charleston Catholic Athletic Complex, one of two sites the Golden Eagles will call home this season as they wait for a new on-campus facility to open this fall.
The CCAC's rims were the first in line with a warm welcome.
UC hit a season-high 14 3-pointers in cruising to a 88-66 win over Glenville State, the Golden Eagles' third-straight victory. Forward Aleksander Kesic led UC (9-7, 6-4 Mountain East) with career-high 28 points and hit a trio of 3s of his own, as Charleston shot 34-for-57 (59.6 percent) from the floor and 14-for-26 (53.8 percent) from beyond the arc.
UC's other home this season, the Civic Center, is much less kind to shooters, with the baskets sitting in front of wide open and deep sections of seats, adversely affecting players' depth perception. Charleston Catholic's court provided a much more intimate atmosphere.
UC coach Dwaine Osborne wasn't ready to credit his team's shooting night entirely to the different environment, but he was happy to see it.
"It's hard to say," he said. "It's kind of like trying to come up with a hypothesis on one single game. But we shot it well today. Obviously, when we shoot the ball well, we can be pretty good."
Charleston now hopes they can transfer that hot shooting to the Walker Convocation Center, where the Golden Eagles visit West Virginia State at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
UC junior Travon Williams got the Golden Eagles' long-distance party started, burying a trio of 3-pointers in the game's first five minutes. Five more UC players hit first-half 3-pointers, with four of them making at least two. Charleston ended the first half making 11 of 18 3-pointers and taking a 54-29 lead into the locker room.
Charleston extended that lead to as many as 28 in the second half, a Tino DiTrapano 3 with 16:28 left giving the Golden Eagles a 65-38 advantage over the Pioneers (6-10, 3-7 MEC). Charleston's 14 3-pointers edged its previous season best of 13 it hit at Davis and Elkins on Dec. 19. Monday was UC's second-best 3-point shooting percentage for a game this year. The Golden Eagles made 54.2 percent against Davis and Elkins.
Many of UC's 3-point opportunities on Monday were ones the Golden Eagles couldn't help but take advantage of.
"So many of the shots were almost like, if you don't shoot it, something is wrong," Osborne said. "You're standing there wide open and it's guys who can make shots."
Glenville State coach Stephen Dye agreed there were plenty of open 3-pointers for the Golden Eagles, and way too many for his liking.
"We're a bad defensive team right now," Dye said. "And until we fix our defensive mistakes, we're not going to win very many games. You can't leave college basketball players open. You've got to have some type of pressure, and we weren't able to get any sort of pressure tonight."
The efficiency of Charleston's offense wasn't relegated to just the 3-point line. The Golden Eagles dished out 19 assists on 34 field goals and committed just five turnovers.
"It was fun," Kesic said. "We were sharing the ball and did a great job there. Our assist-to-turnover ratio was really good, and like coach said, we're not going to lose a lot of games sharing the ball like that."
DiTrapano and Williams each scored 15 points, while Jaylen Hinton dished out seven assists to just one turnover. Sedric Nady led Glenville State with 20 points and Tonnie Collier scored 12, but no other Pioneer scored more than Andrew Johnson's seven.
In the women's game, the Golden Eagles came up just short against the Pioneers, falling 70-69. UC (5-11, 3-7 MEC) drew to within one point with 2.9 seconds left, when junior Olivia Nicholas hit a 3-pointer. Charleston fouled, and Glenville's Paris McLeod missed both free throws, but UC couldn't get off a shot before the final buzzer.
Kiara Johnson scored a game-best 22 points for Charleston, which lost its fourth game in its last five and played once again without Chyress Lockhart (knee). Abby Watson added 12 points for UC. Brittany Jackson led the Pioneers (10-6, 6-4) with 19 points.