By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
When these teams played nine days earlier, there were two lead changes in the final nine seconds. No such drama unfolded in Thursday night's rematch at Kaplan Arena.
Charleston led wire-to-wire and controlled both ends of the floor in an 84-61 win over William & Mary. The Tribe rallied in the final minutes of the first half to make it a five-point game at the break, but Charleston led by double digits for the final 11:52.
William & Mary (5-18, 4-6 CAA) struggled on both ends of the floor in its most-lopsided conference loss this season. The Tribe shot 35.7% overall, its lowest figure since a Dec. 12 loss at Fairfield, and was outrebounded 40-27.
Charleston (12-9, 4-5) shot 57%, 66% in the second half. The Cougars outscored the Tribe 42-30 in the paint.
"That was not a great effort from us," W&M coach
Dane Fischer said. "Charleston was really aggressive early on. We were able to weather the storm a little bit and get back in it towards the end of the first half.
"(The) second half, we just couldn't get any stops. They were at the rim so much in the game, and that was a big emphasis for us, to keep them away out of the paint. We didn't do a great job of that tonight."
Connor Kochera led the Tribe with 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting.
Ben Wight added 10 points and five rebounds.
The Cougars led 32-22 with two minutes left in the first half, but the Tribe closed with an 8-3 run to make it a five-point game. The momentum didn't last as Charleston bumped its lead back to double digits with a 3-pointer and a drive in the first 60 seconds of the final frame.
The Tribe trailed 53-44 with 12:29 remaining and had a chance to get closer. But on consecutive possessions, W&M missed shots at the rim. Charleston got a pair of layups, the second of which became an and-one, and pushed the lead back to 58-44 at 11:28.
"I thought that was kind of the game," Fischer said.
Charleston came in third among CAA teams in scoring offense but seventh in scoring defense. Thursday night, the former set up the latter.
"We were constantly taking the ball out of the net (to inbound) and coming down to face a set defense," Fischer said. "It's hard to score over the course of a game when you face a set defense. And we faced a set defense quite a bit tonight because of how much they scored on us.
"I thought we had some looks we typically make that we missed. They did a good job of protecting the paint on their end. We probably needed to continue moving the ball a little bit more. I think some guys took a bit more of a passive shot than the aggressive, get to the rim and attack move."
William & Mary will get back at it Saturday at home against first-place UNC Wilmington (15-6, 9-1). The Seahawks had won 12 consecutive games before Thursday night's 78-65 loss at Elon.
"Obviously we have to regroup from this one and refocus on what we need to do," Fischer said. "It's a little bit of the beauty in the league that you play again in two days, and we get the team that's in first place coming here.
"I know our guys will bounce back. They've shown they can do that this year. We'll handle this right way, learn from it where we need to, and get ready to go against Wilmington."
