CULLOWHEE, N.C. - Sophomore Willis Hall (Charlotte, N.C.) registered his second career double-double with a game-high 21 points and a career-high 18 rebounds, but it wasn't enough as Western Carolina defeated College of Charleston, 70-62, to earn the North Division No. 1 seed in the upcoming Southern Conference Tournament on Saturday night at the Ramsey Center.

The Cougars (22-9, 14-4) dropped their second-straight game after reeling off seven wins in a row in league play prior to their road losses at Appalachian State on Feb. 24 and to the Catamounts (17-14, 12-6), who were fighting with divisional rival Chattanooga for the top bye in the postseason tournament next week.

The shots just weren't falling for the Cougars who went a season-low 35.1 percent (26-of-74) from the floor and found themselves in foul trouble sending WCU to the line 20 times in which they converted 14. CofC also made 16 turnovers in the ballgame and only had three players in double figures, Hall, senior All-America candidate Andrew Goudelock (Stone Mountain, Ga.) with 12 and sophomore Andrew Lawrence (London, England) with 13 in which 10 were in the final minutes of the second half.

Western Carolina led 36-24 at halftime and by as many as 16 points with 16:41 remaining in regulation. CofC cut it down to five on two free throws by Goudelock, 55-50, with 5:06 to go, but the Catamounts responded with an 8-0 run to pull out in front for good.

Mike Williams led the way for WCU with 18 points on Senior Night followed by 16 each from Harouna Mutombo, nephew of Dikembe Mutombo, and Richie Gordon.

The Cougars, who earned the South Division No. 1 seed, will next travel to the 2011 SoCon Men's Basketball Tournament to be held on March 4-7 at McKenzie Arena in Chattanooga, Tenn. CofC will play the winner of Elon (No. 4 North Division) or The Citadel (No. 5 South Division) in the quarterfinals on Saturday, March 5 at approximately 9:30 p.m. (ET).

POSTGAME NOTES

• For the seventh time this season, CofC used the starting lineup of senior Donavan Monroe, senior Andrew Goudelock, junior Antwaine Wiggins, sophomore Willis Hall and freshman Trent Wiedeman (5-2).
• With the loss, the Cougars still lead 16-7 in the all-time series with Western Carolina. They have now lost three in a row when playing on the road in Cullowhee, N.C.
• Willis Hall turned in his second career double-double with a team-high 21 points and career-high 18 rebounds versus the Catamounts. It was the most rebounds in a single game by a Cougar since Jeremy Simmons brought down 17 boards versus Charleston Southern on Dec. 16, 2009.
• Andrew Goudelock extended his double-figure scoring streak to 16 consecutive games with 12 points against Western Carolina. He has now tabulated 2,407 career points to date which ranks second-best nationally among active NCAA Division I career scoring leaders.
• Donavan Monroe added eight points against WCU to move into the top 15 on the CofC all-time career scorers list surpassing former greats Jermaine Johnson (1,276) and Tony Mitchell (1,280) for 14th all-time with 1,282 career points to date which also ranks seventh all-time in CofC's NCAA Division I history.
• The Cougars trailed at halftime for only the eighth time this season (3-5). They were down by 12 points which was tied as the second-largest halftime deficit this season next to 17 points at halftime at Morehead State on Jan. 2 and 12 points behind Coastal Carolina on Nov. 16.
• CofC shot 27.8 percent in the first half which was its second-lowest percentage of the season behind 23.1 percent at Morehead State on Jan. 2. The Cougars, who were ranked No. 9 in the nation in field-goal percentage prior to the contest, shot a season-low 35.1 percent from the field (26-of-74) and 22.7 percent from beyond the arc (5-of-22) versus the Catamounts.
• The Cougars scored the third-fewest points of the season (62) which was also the fewest against a SoCon opponent.

POSTGAME QUOTES

College of Charleston Head Coach Bobby Cremins

On the game ...

"We are not ourselves right now. I don't know what's going on. The first half was ugly. I don't know if its complacency. We are just not playing our game. It is tough playing on the road at Appalachian (State) and Western (Carolina), but these are great kids who can play better than that. We have ourselves in a trap right now and it will be hard going into the Southern Conference Tournament like this. The one positive from the game is that we fought back in the second half. I'm just disappointed, because we had a chance to get back in there when we were down by five. Bottom line is we are not playing College of Charleston Basketball right now. We had a great regular season. Now, it's a whole new ballgame. It's a new season and we start all over again. We won one prize already and now there is a bigger prize. We have some work to do. We will have a couple of days off, but we will get to work in practice later this week. I congratulate Western. They played a really fine ballgame tonight."