ASU dumps

Cats in finale
By Steve Behr
sports@wataugademocrat.com

During his eight-year tenure as head coach of the Appalachian State men’s basketball team, Houston Fancher has insisted that the Southern Conference is a guard’s league.

Sure, it’s important to have good players in the front court. But a good backcourt, especially at point guard, wins SoCon championships.

So, naturally Fancher was pleased to see two guards, Kellen Brand and Donald Sims, lead the Mountaineers in scoring in their 74-63 victory over Western Carolina in front of 3,732 at the Holmes Center Saturday.

The victory gave Appalachian State (18-12, 13-7 SoCon) a share of the SoCon’s North Division championship. The Mountaineers, who lost the tiebreaker to fellow North champ Chattanooga, are the fourth seed in the Southern Conference Tournament and open against North rival UNC Greensboro Saturday at 3:30 p.m.

Fancher said the best thing about playing UNC Greensboro is that they know exactly who they will be playing in the first round. The Mountaineers won’t be playing the winner of a play-in game.

“The only advantage of playing Greensboro is that we know who we will play,” Fancher said “We’ll know tomorrow who we’ll prepare for all week.”

UNC Greensboro has that same advantage and might start by preparing for Appalachian State’s guards. Brand led all Mountaineers with 18 points, hitting 3-of-5 from 3-point range. Sims, Appalachian State’s freshman point guard, added 15 points, hitting 7-of-8 from the foul line, in just 17 minutes.

“It was good to see Donald get back into the mix,” Fancher said. “We need Donald Sims to play well and be productive and successful. He’s got to play with confidence.”

“He’s spent extra time in the gym and Donald’s a good player. We need him to be aggressive offensively and for him to score 15 points in 17 minutes, I think we can classify as aggressive,” Fancher added.

Brand and Sims came off the bench since the Mountaineers started all five of their seniors on Senior Night.

That meant that Doug McLaughlin-Williams, standing 6-foot-8, was the point guard.

Jay McMillan, a five-year senior, started at the other guard, while Jeremy Clayton, Donte Minter and Davis Bowne started up front. McMillan made it worth Fancher’s while to keep the lineup on the court for the first four minutes of the game by making a 3-pointer, the first basket made in the game.

“You can imagine my anxiety going into this game starting five post players,” Fancher said. “I was wondering who was going to bring the ball up, first of all. We first planned, if we got the tip, to call timeout. We worked our way past that idea. It was tough on me, but we did.”

“To see Jay McMillan splash that first three, was the absolute biggest blessing our team could have tonight,” Fancher added. “I was so excited for him.”

Eventually, the Mountaineers claimed a 38-28 halftime lead and were never really challenged by the Catamounts (10-19, 6-13). Western Carolina got 19 points from Jake Robinson and 14 from Negus McKenna of the bench. Eric Wilson added 11 points for the Catamounts, who pulled down 17 offensive rebounds and made all eight of their foul shots.

Western Carolina was down to just seven scholarship players after an injury to Brandon Giles last week left the Catamounts even more shorthanded. Wilson played the entire 40 minutes, while Robinson played 38. All seven scholarship players — Western Carolina added a walk-on for insurance — played at least 18 minutes.
“I’m so proud of my guys,” Western Carolina coach Larry Hunter said. “For the last six to eight weeks, we’ve been competing like a son-of-a-gun.”

Appalachian State 74, Western Carolina 63
Western Carolina (10-19, 6-13)
Gore 3-13 0-0 6, Robinson 7-15 3-3 19, Gordon 1-5 3-3 5, Waginger 2-5 0-0 6, Wilson 5-11 0-0 11, McKenna 5-10 0-0 14, Gallagher 0-3 2-2 2. Totals 23-62 8-8 63.
Appalachian State (18-12, 13-7)
Clayton 3-5 2-4 8, McMillan 1-1 1-2 4, Bowne 2-3 0-0 4, McLaughlin-Williams 3-6 2-3 10, Minter 3-4 0-0 6, Sims 3-5 7-8 15, Abraham 3-6 0-0 8, Archer 0-0 0-0 0, Booth 0-3 1-2 1, Bermudez 0-2 0-0 0, Brand 5-10 5-6 18, Butts 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 23-47 18-25 74.
Halftime score—ASU 38, Western 28. 3-point goals—Western 9-27 (McKenna 4-8, Waginger 2-5, Robinson 2-8, Wilson 1-3, Gore 0-3), ASU 10-20 (Brand 3-5, McLaughlin-Williams 2-3, Abraham 2-3, Sims 2-4, McMillan 1-1, Booth 0-2, Bermudez 0-2). Rebounds—Western 33 (Gordon 6), ASU 33 (Clayton 13). Assists—Western 12 (Gordon 5), ASU 13 (Clayton 4). Turnovers—Western 13, ASU 12. Total fouls—Western 23, ASU 11. Fouled out—None. Technical fouls—Western bench. A—3,732.