WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – The College of Charleston men's basketball team held on for a 84-83 over William & Mary Saturday in Williamsburg.
Frankie Policelli and
CJ Fulton put the Cougars on the board early with back-to-back makes from behind the arc before the hot shooting Tribe went 8-for-10 from the field to force a Cougar timeout down 21-12.
Two early goal tending calls against W&M along with a two-minute scoring drought propelled a 5-0 Cougar run to bring the CofC within four at 21-17.
Three straight triples from
Reyne Smith,
Ben Burnham and
Khalil London pushed an 11-0 run to erase a nine-point deficit to put Charleston up 36-33 with 3:33 remaining in the first half.
A half-court shot at the buzzer helped the Tribe enter the locker room up 44-41.
Bryce Butler had a team-high eight points at the half. Charleston shot 50% from the field in the frame while W&M went 60%.
The Tribe opened the second half with a three-pointer before Charleston went on a 12-0 run highlighted by seven points from
Ben Burnham to take a 53-47 edge.
Ben Burnham went on an 8-0 run with 11 minutes remaining to give Charleston their largest lead of the game at 65-58.
The Cougars held a 79-71 lead with 30 seconds remaining. Back-to-back W&M triples made it a one possession game at 79-77 with 16 seconds to play. Clutch free-throws from Smith,
Khalil London and
Ante Brzovic helped seal the thrilling victory.
KEY COUGARS
- Burnham recorded his third 20-plus performance of the season to go with seven rebounds.
- Smith contributed ten points followed by Policelli, Brzovic, Bryce Butler and James Scott with eight each.
GAME NOTES
- The win marked Charleston's second all-time win in Kaplan arena. The first was Kelsey's first visit as head coach on February 3, 2022.
- All 11 Cougars that saw action in today's contest scored.
- Charleston trailed at the half for just the fourth time this season, winning three of the four contests.
UP NEXT
- Charleston, now 16-7 and 7-3 in CAA play, will return to TD Arena on Thursday, February 8 to take on North Carolina A&T. Action is set for 8:00 p.m.
- The game will be the second of the Cougars' four league contests on CBS Sports Network.