LYNCHBURG, Va.- The Randolph men's basketball team hosted the #1 ranked team in all of Division III in Randolph-Macon in an Old Dominion Athletic Conference clash on Tuesday night at Giles Gymnasium. The WildCats had a brief lead in the first half but the Yellow Jackets proved to be too much in the end as they won 77-43.
Randolph falls to 4-15 and 1-10 in the conference. RM-C improves to 18-1 overall and 10-0 in the ODAC.
Randolph led 8-4 with just over 15 minutes to play in the first half and was up 10-6 with 14:09 showing on the game clock. Randolph-Macon's 14-2 run put the 'Jackets ahead 20-12 with under 11 minutes to go in the half. Layups by CJ Loving (Madison Heights, Va./Amherst County) and Jerry Goodman (Suffolk, Va./Portsmouth Christian School) closed the WildCat deficit to four points, 20-16, with 9:33 on the clock. After trailing by as much as eight points, the Wildcats got to within three points, 26-23, with 3:14 left until halftime. Randolph-Macon ended the half on an 11-3 run to lead 37-26 at the break.
Both teams struggled in the opening minutes of the second half to get a basket. The Yellow Jackets scored on a layup by Daniel Mbangue at 17:04 to lead 39-26. The RM-C lead grew to 16 points, 42-26, with 15:43 remaining. The WildCats got to within 15 points at 46-31 with under 14 minutes left to play. That would be as close as Randolph would get as Randolph-Macon increased their lead and never looked back.
"I thought our guys were ready to compete tonight," said head coach Pete Hamilton. "A few bounces or a few less turnovers in the first half and we might have been able to sustain that scoring drought in the second half a little bit longer. Obviously RMC is #1 in the nation for a reason – Coach Merkel does a heck of a job with those guys defensively and they seem to always make the right play offensively. The zone we played was able to throw them out of those decisions at that time but we knew it would need to generate more production on our offensive end in the long run. Credit to them – they got back and got set and we weren't able to play in transition and scrambles as much as we like to.
The WildCats shot 19-of-57 from the floor (33.3%) and 4-of-14 (28.6%) from behind the three-point arc. The Yellow Jackets were 30-of-62 (48.4%) overall and 9-of-28 (32.1%) in three-point shots.
Goodman and Danny Bickey (Beckley, W.V./Woodrow Wilson) both scored 13 points to lead the WildCats. Goodman added three steals. Loving finished with three points, three steals, and three rebounds.
"Cole Perry gave us some nice minutes off the bench tonight," noted Hamilton. "His energy and activity in our zone made a difference and he did a nice job decision making against their zone as well. Jerry and Bickey found light in stretches but I think the physicality took a toll of them in stretches as well. Although the ending score doesn't say it – I think we got better tonight and can take some positives from tonight as we enter the stretch run and try to give ourselves a chance at the end of the month."
Randolph hosts Ferrum this Saturday. Game time will be at 2:00 p.m.
