Men’s Basketball Batters Furman 78-61 in Senior Day Victory
2/24/2013 3:02:15 AM | Men's Basketball
SENIOR DAY CELEBRATION PHOTO GALLERY
VIDEO: Postgame interview with Head Coach C.Y. Young
FINAL STATS (PDF)
STATESBORO, GA. – Georgia Southern Men’s Basketball took a 78-61 win over Furman on Saturday night in the 2012-13 home finale at Hanner Fieldhouse. Seniors Cameron Baskerville and C.J. Reed along with senior managers Aaron McLeod and Anthony Ashley were honored in a pregame ceremony at Hanner Fieldhouse.
“We are very excited for our guys to get the win and get that happy feeling again,” said Head Coach Charlton “C.Y.” Young. “We really shot the ball well and made the extra pass, it was a very good team effort tonight. I’m really happy for our seniors to get a big win tonight in their final home game. We haven’t had a lot of confidence of late, but we fought through it and shot the ball well to get that happy feeling back.”
Georgia Southern (12-17, 6-10 SoCon) dropped a season-high 15 three-pointers on the night and tallied a season-high 20 assists in the game. Reed led the way for GSU with 14 points including four buckets from downtown. He also dished eight assists on the night.
Freshman Cleon Roberts scored 13 points with three buckets from the bonusphere in 31 minutes of work. Eric Ferguson was blanked in the first half, but responded with 11 points in the second half including three powerful dunks as the junior played with four fouls. Tre Bussey added 11 points including three from downtown as the junior pulled down a career-high eight rebounds.
Marvin Baynham also had eight rebounds to go with nine points. Baskerville scored eight points with five rebounds on senior night.
The only sour note on the evening was when junior Brian Holmes went down late with an apparent injury. He had scored nine points with four assists in his third-straight start for the Eagles. His status will be evaluated next week.
Furman (6-21, 3-13 SoCon) was paced by 22 points from Colin Reddick while Bryant Irwin and Bobby Austin scored 12 and 13 points, respectively for the Paladins. The visitors, who have been stricken of late by injury played all seven healthy players in the contest with three playing all 40 minutes.
The Eagles scored six three-pointers in the first half and led by as many as 12 in the opening period before taking a 30-27 lead into the intermission. Out of the break, GSU got the lead to nine in the first minute of the second half, but Furman rallied to tie the game at the 13:14 mark.
The game stayed close for the next five minutes until a Baskerville dunk with 8:09 left drove the lead back to seven points. That would be as close as Furman would get as the Eagles powered past the visitors in the waning minutes.
Coach Young pulled both Reed and Baskerville for a curtain call late in the contest, but the crowd would get another treat in the final minute of the game. Sophomore Tracy Ham Jr. drove the lane and dished wide to freshman Cole Rives who buried his second career three-pointer. The assist was the first for Ham who saw his first game action since December 8th.
Georgia Southern closes the 2012-13 regular season this week with a pair of games in the Tar Heel State. GSU faces UNCG on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. before closing the regular season on Saturday against Davidson from 2 p.m.
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