CAA Men’s Basketball Recap – Jan. 5
Charleston 88, William & Mary 79
Box Score
Charleston’s Colby Duggan and Martin Kalu weathered a second-half surge to help the Cougars (10-6, 3-0 CAA) to an 88-79 win over William & Mary (11-4, 2-1 CAA). Charleston’s two leading scorers combined to shoot 11-for-21 from the floor with six of the team’s 11 3-pointers. Jlynn Counter and Chris Davis Jr. rounded out those in double figures, posting 16 and 11 points, respectively. All nine Charleston players to see action on Monday scored four or more points in the win. For the fourth straight season, Charleston opened CAA play with a 3-0 mark. CofC picked up its sixth consecutive win.
After an opening alley-oop slam from CofC’s Chol Machot, William & Mary’s Kilian Brockhoff and Jo’el Emanuel knocked down consecutive treys to spark an 11-2 run through the under-16 media timeout. Out of the break, the Cougars rattled off a 25-5 stretch that started with a Kalu 3-pointer and finished with a Duggan finish through traffic for a three-point play to take a 29-16 lead with 9:04 to play. Charleston grew its lead to as many as 16 before the halftime buzzer, taking a 46-32 advantage into the intermission. The Cougars shot 50.0% from the floor in the opening frame, going 10-for-16 inside the arc with five triples. CofC also held William & Mary to its fewest points (32) in the opening half this season.
The Tribe scored 12 straight points out of halftime, with back-to-back triples from Tunde Vahlberg Fasasi pulling the visitors to within two, 46-44, just under three minutes into the frame. The Swedish forward finished with 20 points, three steals and two blocks. After Charleston saw its lead cut to one, Kalu went on a personal 5-0 spurt, part of a stretch of 10 unanswered points that put the Cougars back ahead by double digits, 58-47, with 14 minutes to play. Charleston kept the Tribe at bay with repetitive retaliation over the next seven minutes, relying on Kalu and Duggan to maintain an eight-point edge, 72-64. Shortly after, William & Mary’s Kyle Pulliam knocked down a 3-pointer from the wing, starting a 6-0 stretch that slashed the visitors’ deficit to two, 74-72, with under five minutes remaining. It was as close as the Tribe would get as the Cougars’ Connor Hickman and Duggan drained back-to-back corner treys in the final two minutes to put the game out of reach and eventually secure a nine-point win. Brockhoff notched 16 points, with three of his six makes coming from distance. Chase Lowe recorded a 14-point, 11-rebound double-double to go with five assists.