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VCU's star point guard scores 30 points to stop UA's second-half rally
Published on Thursday, Dec 18, 2008
Beacon Journal staff report
A subpar first half by the University of Akron and a superior Eric Maynor of Virginia Commonwealth proved to be the difference in the Zips' 73-69 loss Wednesday night at the Siegel Center in Richmond, Va.
The Zips (6-4), who trailed by 16 points at halftime, rallied in the final 20 minutes before a crowd of 4,738.
''We played good the first 10 minutes. We did a poor job of handling their pressure over a six-minute stretch after that and they won the game with it,'' Zips coach Keith Dambrot said.
''We rallied back, showed some fight and gave ourselves a chance to win, but our lack of offensive and defensive discipline hurt us.''
UA had five players in double figures, and VCU (7-3) had only one.
But that lone Rams player was Maynor, a 6-foot-3 senior
who is one of the best point guards in the country.
Maynor scored 30 points, many of them down the stretch when he basically took over the game.
''We didn't do a good job of stopping him when it mattered,'' Dambrot said.
''He blew by our guys, no matter who we put on him.''
For the Zips, freshman guard Anthony ''Humpty'' Hitchens had 14 points and junior forward Chris McKnight had 13 points. Senior forward Nate Linhart and sophomore forward Brett McKnight added 12 points each. Sophomore guard Steve McNees contributed 10.
In the first half, Linhart had six quick points to stake the Zips to an 11-6 advantage.
The Rams, led by Bradford Burgess and Maynor, followed that with a 16-5 run to go ahead 22-16 with eight minutes remaining in the half.
Baskets by Linhart and Brett McKnight got UA back to 23-20. But Maynor took over after that to lead the Rams to a closing 15-2 push that made it 38-22 at halftime.
The second half saw the Zips turn up the defensive pressure at the start and use a 16-6 spurt to get back to 44-38 with 12:36 remaining.
Brothers Brett and Chris McKnight paced the rally, and Darryl Roberts ended it by making two free throws after a technical foul on VCU coach Anthony Grant.
The Rams, who are members of the Colonial Athletic Association, then hit 6-of-6 from the foul line in adding one point to their lead at 50-43.
Later, VCU was up 56-47 when Hitchens hit two free throws, a drive and a 3-pointer to get the Zips back to 59-54 with 5:35 left.
An 8-2 VCU run gave the home team a 67-56 lead, but Roberts and Brett McKnight hit back-to-back 3-pointers to make it 67-62 with three minutes left.
Maynor then took it from there with six points over the next 90 seconds to make it 73-64.
The Zips hung in by forcing two turnovers and getting five points from Hitchens to get to 73-69 in the waning seconds, but it was too late.
VCU shot 47 percent (23-of-47) from the floor and the Zips shot 45 percent (25-of-56). The Rams had a 34-27 rebounding edge, led by the game-high 12 of 6-8 junior Kirill Pishchalnikov.
The Zips have a long break before playing Dec. 28 at home against St. Francis (N.Y.) College.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Posted 12:38 PM, 12/18/2008
tough loss, but a loss to a very good team. The Zips will take alot from this loss and judging by the way they are playing against some big time teams, the MAC better watch out.
