GREENEVILLE, TN – Tusculum held the lead for 29:11 and UVA Wise led for only 8:39 when they met in Pioneer Arena Wednesday evening, but the final 33 seconds were all that mattered for the Highland Cavaliers as a free throw by
Cy Hardy with 2.6 seconds remaining capped off a late comeback as UVA Wise stole a South Atlantic Conference win from Tusculum, 83-81
The win is one of the biggest in the program's history as the team has now won 20 wins in a season for only the third time in program history and the first time in the NCAA era.
With the win, Coach
Blake Mellinger joins his former coach and predecessor Lee Clark, who won 24 games in the 2002-03 season, and Preston Mitchell, who led the Cavs to 21 wins in 1993-94.
The win also clinches a berth for the Cavs in the upcoming South Atlantic Conference Tournament. They are currently tied with Catwba for third in the conference standings with three games remaining, but the two teams will meet in the regular season finale in Wise on Feb. 28. LMU trails UVA Wise by a game in fifth place, but travels to Coker before coming to Wise next Wednesday.
INSIDE THE MATCHUP
Result: UVA Wise 83, Tusculum 81
Records: UVA Wise (20-7, 13-6 SAC); Tusculum (10-15, 6-13 SAC)
Location: Greeneville, TN | Pioneer Arena
HOW IT HAPPENED
- The opening half saw a back-and-forth contest between the Highland Cavaliers and Tusculum, with each team exchanging early leads.
Cy Hardy had two layups to spark the Cavs, but TU shot out to a nine point lead. They would extend it to fourteen before a three by
Calen Lightford started a rally by UVA Wise. A late flurry of scoring, including a tip-in by
Evan Ramsey at the buzzer, brought UVA Wise within two points, closing the half at 40-38 in favor of Tusculum.
- All during the second half it seemed like the game would end up coming down to whoever had the ball last. The Cavs started strong with
Patrick Shelley hitting a three-pointer at 18:20, assisted by Hardy, giving them a 43-40 lead.
Yoro Diallo extended the lead with a fastbreak dunk at 17:36. The Pioneers rallied with a fast-break layup from Bryce Jackson at 16:29, reducing the deficit to three. Tusculum chipped away behind the hot shooting of Jordan Attia and the Pioneers not only regained the lead with 10:06 left, but rode a 9-0 run to take a 63-55 lead a little more than a minute later. The game remained close as the Pioneers would see their lead whittled down to 1-2 points before hitting a big basket, but Ramsey's tip-in with 55 seconds remaining put UVA Wise ahead 80-79. Attia got the ball on the next possession and scored, but Hardy sealed the game with a layup at 20 seconds and a free throw with two seconds left. Attia had a chance at the buzzer from midcourt, but his shot sailed to the left, and UVA Wise held on for the 83-81 win.
GETTING WISE
-
Patrick Shelley led the Cavs with nineteen points and six rebounds as well as three key three-pointers. He now has 972 points for his career.
-
Evan Ramsey had his seventh double-double of the season (and twelfth of his career) as he had eighteen points and ten rebounds. He also went a perfect 6-6 from the free throw line.
-
Yoro Diallo scored fifteen points and pulled down eight rebounds.
-
Cy Hardy had twelve points, four assists, and two steals.
- Attia led the Pioneers with twenty points, while reigning SAC Player of the Week Bryce Jackson scored seventeen.
- The Cavs out-rebounded the Pioneers 38-33.
- This is the fourth straight win by the Cavs over the Pioneers. The last time that happened was from 1989-91.
- The team is currently ranked as one of the top ten teams in the region in the official NCAA D-II Regional Rankings, which were released earlier today. The alphabetical list is one of the guidelines used by the NCAA to pick teams for the tournament.
THE BIG TWO-ZERO
- Twenty wins in a season is a program goal for practically every college coach in the country, and one that has been elusive for UVA Wise. They first surpassed the 20-win plateau in 1993-94, when Coach Preston Mitchell led the Cavs to a 21-10 overall record and a 14-6 record in the Tennessee-Virginia Athletic Conference. Mitchell also has the unique distinction of also leading the UVA Wise (then Clinch Valley) women's team to their first 20-win season in 1990-91, when they went 22-7. He also led them to a 25-8 record the next season (still the women's program record for wins in a season) before moving over to the men's program in 1992. His first team went 8-22 before going 21-10 a year later grabbing their 20th win, somewhat ironically, against Tusculum 96-92 in Greear Gym on Feb. 22, 1994.
- Lee Clark took over the head coaching job from Mitchell in 1996 and broke the 20-win mark in 2002-03 as the team went 24-10, capturing the Appalachian Athletic Conference regular season and tournament titles and earning a berth in the NAIA Tournament. (He would take the team to the NAIA Tournament again in 2010.) They earned win number 20 with the 73-59 win over AAC rival Tennessee Wesleyan in Greear Gym. The leading scorer that season? Cue the Obligatory Zack Moore Reference™.
- The thirteen conference wins tie for the fourth-most since the school fully joined a conference in 1991 (they were associated with the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference for most of the 1980s, but were never full members in all sports) with the 2003-04 team. The most conference wins were seventeen by the 2003-04 squad, followed by fifteen last season and fourteen by the 1993-94 team.
UP NEXT
The Cavs will make their final road trip of the regular season when they travel to Anderson, South Carolina, to take on the eighth-ranked Trojans Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. Only two SAC teams have defeated Anderson this season, and one of them was UVA Wise, who won 73-67 in Wise on January 17.
