ETSU: Bucs end 3-game skid

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – After allowing a double-digit lead to slip away in the waning minutes of the game, the ETSU men’s basketball team held on to defeat College of Charleston 77-71 on Wednesday night at Memorial Center in Johnson City, Tenn.

ETSU allowed the Cougars to rally from 11 points down to pull within three points with less than a minute to play. Charleston miscues and clutch free-throw shooting saved the Bucs from what would have been their fourth consecutive loss.

“We hung in there,” said ETSU head coach Murry Bartow. “College of Charleston’s got a good team. It could’ve obviously at the end gone the other way.”

The Bucs used a solid inside game to keep Charleston in check through most of the match. ETSU scored 46 points in the paint and shot 48 percent for the game. Defensively, ETSU held the Cougars to 39 percent from the floor while winning the rebound battle 47-33.

“East Tennessee State took it to us,” said College of Charleston head coach Bobby Cremins. “We hung in there and kept chipping away, but we’re still a team trying to find itself.”

Injury concerns have forced ETSU to try to find itself as well. It was the Bucs’ fourth straight game where team captain Mike Smith was held out due to injury. Bartow said he didn’t know when to expect the senior guard Smith, the only Buccaneer who averaged double figures in scoring last season, to return to the court.

“We’re missing Mike Smith in about 100 different ways,” Bartow said. “Without him in there, we’re just not as stable as we’d like to be on offense.

Despite Smith’s absence, ETSU was able to get quality performances from lesser-known players. Junior guard Justin Tubbs led the game in scoring with a career-best 29 points while shooting 10-of-18 from the field. Tubbs’ 29 points currently leads all active Buccaneers in highest single-game point total.

“When you hit those first few shots, it builds a lot of confidence,” Tubbs said. “I just rode that confidence through the whole game.”

Junior forward Tommy Hubbard recorded his third double-double of the season by nabbing 11 rebounds to go with 13 points. Redshirt freshman J.C. Ward also added 11 points off the bench.

For the Cougars, sophomore center Jeremy Simmons scored 18 points while grabbing a team-high eight rebounds, while senior forward Casaan Breeden added 15. Junior guard Andrew Goudelock led Charleston in scoring with 23 points on 9-of-20 shooting.

“I can’t say enough about Drew Goudelock,” Cremins said. “Sometimes he’s a guy who tries to do too much, but he played with a lot of heart.”

The Bucs opened the game with a 7-0 run, with Tubbs adding five of those points. After a Charleston timeout, the Cougars were able to cut their deficit to one (14-13) over the next five minutes. ETSU responded quickly, however, and scored eight unanswered points to reestablish its lead at 22-13. While Charleston eventually managed to find answers on offense, they had no answer for Tubbs, who scored 12 of ETSU’s last 18 points of the half. ETSU gradually built its lead to 10 as the Bucs led 40-30 at halftime.

Tubbs scored half of the Bucs’ first-half points with 20 on 7-of-10 shooting. The rest of the team went 9-of-23 from the field for the remaining 20. Simmons led the Cougars with 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting.

“I think [Tubbs] has won that starting job,” Bartow said. “He’s still a work in progress ... he’s going to get better and better.”

The second half started slowly for both teams. After a quick ETSU bucket, both teams combined to miss ten shots over the next four minutes. With baskets and miscues coming equally from both teams, ETSU hovered around its double-digit lead until the clock hit the 6:30 mark, with the score 62-52.

From there, the Cougars rallied behind Goudelock’s hot hand as the junior led the way with seven points and a steal in the next four minutes to pull the score to 70-66. After two ETSU baskets and a Charleston tip-in, Simmons drilled a 3-pointer over Hubbard to pull the score to 74-71.

The Cougars could not get over the hump, however, as Goudelock missed two open 3-pointers, forcing Charleston to foul the Bucs to stop the clock. ETSU would add four free throws to put the final score at 77-71.

The Cougars will try to rebound from their loss when they visit Knoxville to play University of Tennessee on Nov. 27. Tip off is slated for 7 p.m. ETSU will also test themselves against an SEC opponent when they travel to Fayetteville, Ark., to play the Razorbacks of Arkansas at 8 p.m.