BOX SCORE (pdf)
CONWAY, S.C. – Arlon Harper scored 20 points and Charleston Southern rallied for an 81-71 win over Campbell Wednesday in the first round of the VisitMyrtleBeach.com Big South Championship at The HTC Center in Conway, S.C.
Will Saunders added 18 points, Sheldon Strickland 14 and Matt Kennedy 13 for Charleston Southern (13-17), which will meet host and South Division top seed Coastal Carolina in Friday's 6:00 p.m. quarterfinal.
Reco McCarter led Campbell (12-20) with 19 points on 7-of-16 shooting, plus 5 assists. Leek Leek and D.J. Mason added 13 apiece for the Camels, who lost their sixth-straight game.
Campbell led by as many as 15 (41-26) in the first half and by 9 at the break. However, CSU shot 52 percent (15-29) from the floor in the final period, while the Camels cooled off after a hot start.
The Camels jumped to a double-digit edge by the third media time out after hitting 11 of their first 18 shots, including 6 of 9 triples. McCarter (10), Mason (7) and Leek (7) combined for 24 points as CU led 32-21 with 7:56 left in the opening half.
McCarter's off-balance jumper in the lane pushed Campbell's edge to 41-26 with 1:30 left in the opening half. However, CSU trimmed the margin to single digits (42-33) at intermission.
Before the first media break of the second half, the Bucs cut the gap to 48-43 after Kennedy's triple with 15:32 to play. Andrew Ryan's trey pushed the Camel lead back to 53-46 with 13:55 to go, but after Cedrick Bowen scored in the paint, the game was a two-possession affair until the final 32 seconds of play.
Kyre' Hamer's three from the right corner gave Campbell a 61-55 cushion with 10:14 left, but CSU reeled off a 13-3 rally and led 68-64 following Kennedy's bucket with 7:09 to go.
Luke Moyer connected on Campbell's season-tying 13th three-pointer with 6:28 remaining to draw the Camels within one (68-67), but CU did not score from the floor again.
Charleston Southern went nearly 6 minutes without a field goal down the stretch, but the Bucs made 9-11 from the line in the final 3:56 to preserve the victory.
"I thought we played really hard," said Campbell head coach Kevin McGeehan. "We were not as ready to guard in the second half as we needed to be."
Campbell shot just 34.8 percent (22-48) from the floor in the second half, 45.8 percent (22-48) on the night. The Camels knocked down 13-25 triples (5-13 after intermission), but made only 14-of-22 from the line (.636).
The Bucs finished the game shooting 47.4 percent (27-57) from the floor, including 9-27 from beyond the arc (.333), and 72 percent (18-25) from the stripe. Charleston Southern finished with a 41-26 advantage on the boards.
"We put ourselves in a position to win a lot of basketball games this year," said McGeehan. "We were right on the cusp of doing something special. I'm proud of our group. We have a ton of material to work with as we learn how to win together."
