CHARLOTTE, North Carolina -- Shaw University men's basketball team fell victim to a strong second half performance from their cross-town rival Saint Augustine's, falling 74-59 in the second round of the CIAA Tournament.
The Bears conclude their season with a 10-17 mark, while Saint Augustine's improves to 13-15 and will face Livingstone Thursday at 1:00 p.m.
Shaw's
Andre Paulk notched 20 points for the Bears in the loss.
Joe Reid and
Larry Richardson added 11 and 10 points respectively.
Head coach Cleo Hill, Jr. stated, "I just thought overall for us to be playing our biggest rival, our energy level was extremely low…I thought there was a point where we threw in the towel. Coach Sheals is a very good coach and he's going to do well the rest of the tournament. In the end, I think they wanted the basketball game more."
Hill continued, "I don't know what it is. We came out flat to play our rival. When we went down by 15 in the second half, I could tell in the body language they were giving up. I tried to put in some of our higher energy guys, but it just didn't work."
Tashuan Stockdale paced the Falcons with 20 points while Jonathon Crawley and Xavier Saddler-Mae each tallied 11 points. Joel Kindred rounded out the double-digit scorers with 10 points in the win. He also grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds (one offensive, nine defensive).
Tony Sheals, head coach of the Falcons, noted, "Tonight was a night where we thought we had a favorable match-up because we felt that we could defend them. When I look at the difference I see that we were plus-14 in rebounds and that was definitely the difference in the ball game."
The first half was an all-out battle for control of both the momentum and score as both teams fought to establish dominance. The first twenty minutes of play featured eleven ties and nine lead changes.
Andre Paul scored the first bucket of the game with a jumper for Shaw. Tashaun Stockdale responded with a score for the Falcons at the 19:26 mark. A made free throw by
Koron Reed, three-pointer by Paulk and a jumper by Joe Reid put the Bears ahead 8-2 at the 16:06 mark. The six point lead by Shaw was the largest of the half by either team.
The Falcons fought back over the next two minutes to knot the score 8-8. From that point forward, Shaw and St. Augustine's matched each other bucket for bucket, intensely working to give their team a commanding lead.
With 1:14 left in the half and the score tied 25-25, Xavier Saddler-Mee hit a jumper for the Falcons for a 27-25 lead. Shaw's Jeffrey LeGree answered back with a bucket at the buzzer to knot the game at 27 heading into halftime.
The Falcons started the second half with back-to-back scores from Amere May and Stockdale to take a 31-27 lead. St. Augustine's then took advantage of two turnovers from Shaw and used a Saddler-Mee layup and Stockdale dunk to secure a 35-27 lead.
With the score 36-29 in favor of the Falcons, Jonathon Crawley completed the three-point play at the 16:17 mark to leave Shaw trailing by ten. Back-to-back three pointers by Raheem Joliff solidified a 49-34 lead for St. Augustine's with 11:12 remaining in the contest.
From there it was all about the Falcons as they maintained a double-digit lead for the remainder of the contest. A resounding dunk by Joel Kindred with 1:40 left in the contest extended the Falcons' advantage to 71-55. Crawley added a dunk of his own with 18 seconds left in the game to propel St. Augustine's to the 74-59 win.
In addition to his 20 points, Paulk pulled in seven rebounds. Koron Reed led the team with eight boards.
Aquil Younger paced the squad with three assists.
Box Score
COURTESY SHAW UNIVERSITY ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS
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