Higginbotham pleased with team's poise

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on December 1, 2014 1:48 PM

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rcoggins@newsargus.com

MOUNT OLIVE -- Each time No. 20-ranked Georgia Regents Augusta pulled to within single digits Sunday afternoon, University of Mount Olive head men's basketball coach Joey Higginbotham didn't burn a timeout.

He let the Trojans play.

And he couldn't have been more pleased.

UMO kept its composure, received a pair of double-double performances from JUCO transfer JaQuan Blount and Mike Moore, and eased past the Jaguars, 82-75, at Kornegay Arena.

"We didn't play great, but we fought for 40 minutes and that's what I'm proud of," said Higginbotham. "I knew this was our best competition (of the season) coming into the game. I, by no means, thought we were going to blow these guys out like that.

"I knew when we got up by 19, they were going to make a run."

Kendall Hargrove, who battled foul trouble all afternoon, gave the No. 17-ranked Trojans a 53-34 advantage barely five minutes into the second half. The Jaguars (5-1 overall) climbed to within 61-50 on Keshun Sherrill's two free throws with 8:14 to go.

Blount converted a layup in transition and moments later connected on an offensive putback to make it 65-52. Blount snagged seven offensive rebounds, and finished the day with 11 rebounds and 19 points.

"A couple of our bigs were in foul trouble, so I felt like I had to attack the glass more and it was there for me," Blount said. "They're a great team and he (Higginbotham) wanted to play them just like everybody else. It's just another game, so we came in with the same mentality and it worked out for us."

Dontrell Brite's 3-pointer off of Blount's offensive rebound and assist gave UMO a 70-55 lead with 5:59 remaining regulation. GRU Augusta caught fire offensively and went on a 20-10 run, capped by D'Angelo Boyce's 3-pointer off Sherrill's offensive rebound.

Jordan McCain drained two free throws with 38.2 seconds left. McCain then blocked a shot as the Jaguars missed on four shot attempts before Moore pulled down his game-high 11th rebound to seal the outcome.

Moore also scored 16 points and blocked three shots.

The Trojans owned advantages in points in the paint (42-24), points off turnovers (17-11) and second-chance points (14-12).

"We blew leads in both halves," Higginbotham said. "We didn't panic, still played with poise. I could have called timeouts to kind of end it, but this is something that's going to help us in the long run.

"We showed a lot of maturity how we answered the adversity. It was a great team win, our best team win of the year."

UMO ends its stretch of five consecutive home games Wednesday against Conference Carolinas foe Erskine (S.C.) College. Tip-off is 7:30 p.m.