College of Charleston
Tennessee
Cougars Knock Off Tennessee For Second-Straight Season
12/15/2011 5:39:00 AM | Men's Basketball
POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE VIDEO
CHARLESTON, S.C. - For the second-straight season, the College of Charleston men's basketball team knocked off SEC foe Tennessee, 71-65, while entertaining yet another sell-out crowd of 5,137 fans on Wednesday night at TD Arena.
The Cougars (8-1) extended their home-court win streak to 14 consecutive games and have now won their last five straight, while the Volunteers (3-6) lost their fourth in a row. It marks the second-best start in the first nine games of a season in the Bobby Cremins Era next to the team's 2008-09 campaign.
Senior Antwaine Wiggins (Greeneville, Tenn.) provided the offensive spark as he tied his career high with a game-high 24 points, including 15 in the second half, and shot an impressive 10-of-12 from the field. He also pulled down eight rebounds and made three assists.
Junior Andrew Lawrence (London, England) excited the Cougar faithful with his five steals leading to several fast-break opportunities. He finished with 14 points, while CofC converted 16 Tennessee turnovers into 22 points. Lawrence also made four assists, most of them to Wiggins in the fast break.
Freshman Anthony Stitt (Charlotte, N.C.) and redshirt-junior Matt Sundberg (Kennesaw, Ga.) came off the bench to score nine and eight points, respectively, and each made critical plays in the final minutes. Stitt banked a shot off the backboard and drew the foul to put CofC up 67-59 with 2:08 remaining, while Sundberg drew a charging call with less than a minute to play to help secure the win.
The Volunteers were led by Jordan McRae's 19 points on 6-of-12 shooting. Dwight Miller also cracked double digits with his 13 points and seven rebounds.
CofC went on a 13-0 run midway through the second half to jump out to a 56-47 lead at the 9:28 minute mark. The Cougars led by as many as 14 after a three-pointer from Sundberg with under six to go.
The Volunteers found their touch again from three-point range as McRae hit three triples in the final four minutes, the last of which cut the margin to 68-65 with 1:01 left. However, free throws from Lawrence and solid defense did not allow the Volunteers to get any closer.
The Cougars will close out a four-game homestand with intercity rival Charleston Southern (5-3) on Saturday, Dec. 17 at 6 p.m. (ET) at TD Arena. The game will be televised locally on MyTV Charleston and nationally on ESPN3.
POSTGAME NOTES
• For the ninth consecutive game, CofC used the starting lineup of junior Andrew Lawrence, sophomore Jordan Scott, senior Antwaine Wiggins, sophomore Trent Wiedeman and freshman Adjehi Baru (8-1).
• With the win, the Cougars now lead 3-1 in the all-time series with Tennessee and have won back-to-back contests against the Volunteers including last year's 91-78 road victory on New Year's Eve in Knoxville, Tenn.
• It marked the first time to beat two major conference schools in a single season in non-conference play since knocking off Oklahoma State (Big 12) and Villanova (BIG EAST) in the Great Alaska Shootout during the 2002-03 season. CofC defeated Clemson (ACC) on the road on Nov. 19.
• The Cougars are now 8-1 on the season for the first time since 2008-09, their second-best start in the first nine games of a season in the Bobby Cremins Era. They also extended their home-court win streak to 14-straight games at TD Arena.
• CofC saw its 17th all-time sell-out crowd (third of the season) at TD Arena with 5,137 fans in attendance. It was the sixth-largest crowd in school history at the venue which opened in November of 2008.
• Antwaine Wiggins tied a career-high with 24 points against his home state Vols including 15 in the second half of play. It marked his seventh career 20-point game and got him closer to becoming the 29th player in school history to record 1,000 career points, now just short of that goal needing 25 with 975 to date. He is currently on a five-game double-digit scoring streak.
• The Cougars shot 46.7 percent from the three-point line (7-of-15) against the Vols to mark their second-best percentage from downtown in a single game this season.
• For the third time this season, CofC did not lead at the half (2-1) and in back-to-back games.
POSTGAME QUOTES
College of Charleston Head Coach Bobby Cremins
On the game ...
"What a great atmosphere. I want to thank (Tennessee Head Coach) Cuonzo Martin. He honored the contract we made with Bruce Pearl. He is a class act. I really appreciated Tennessee coming here. They brought our great atmosphere for this basketball game. It was a dog fight. They took it to us. They outplayed us early on. We were not ourselves. We have a habit of doing that sometimes. We did that last year against Clemson. I tried to get them to settle down. Antwaine (Wiggins) kept us in the game early. He did a great job of letting the game come to him. I was pleased we were only down by four at halftime. In the second half, my staff recommended we go to the zone and the zone worked. It gave us the lead that we should have finished with, but things got a little sloppy. (Skylar) McBee can really shoot. We recruited him and all of the sudden they got hot and we had some turnovers late and we hand to hang on. It was a great win for us and I can't say enough about the fans tonight. It was a great atmosphere on national TV - what more can you ask for?"
On the future of Tennessee ...
"He (Cuonzo Martin) had them ready. They are going through a transition period and he is going to do some recruiting and they are going to be good. They had us all confused in the first half. We were out of sync and we were in trouble. We were in deep trouble. We were not ourselves."
College of Charleston Senior Forward Antwaine Wiggins
On playing Tennessee and the win ...
"It meant a lot to me, especially going to high school in Tennessee and wanting to go to Tennessee when I was younger. It was a fun atmosphere tonight. I knew we were struggling in the first half. Coach (Cremins) always tells us to keep playing. They were on a big run and I knew we would be on a run sooner or later. We needed to take care of rebounding and play defense. We did that in the second half and things started to change for us."
College of Charleston Junior Point Guard Andrew Lawrence
On the game ...
"It was a tough game. They played with a lot of intensity. We knew that they would coming into the game. They are good team. They were really physical with us. We weren't making shots in the first half and we stuck with it and we came through in the end."
Tennessee Head Coach Cuonzo Martin
On the game ...
"They did a good job down the stretch of the game and really executed their offense and finding ways to win the game. I thought our guys put together a really good first half. If we didn't turn over the ball in a couple of spurts, we could have been up 10-or-15 in the first half. Credit those guys for defending and finding a way to keep it close. It was a good game and they found a way to win."
Tennessee Junior Forward Dwight Miller
On the losses ...
"Before the game, we stressed coming in focused and making sure our heads were where it needed to be. We were fired up going into the game. We were thinking three straight and really wanted that win."
