When the Bucs met Western Carolina on Jan. 13, the outcome was a seven-point win for the Bucs, and when both teams met again on Saturday, the outcome was the same. Only this time the Bucs won by a whole lot more.
The Bucs (13-8, 8-2) pummeled the Catamounts (4-19, 2-8) by 51 points in a 98-47 victory, the largest victory margin ever by and ETSU team in Southern Conference action.
The Bucs jumped out early, opening the contest with a 32-6 run behind tremendous play from junior Dimeco Childress and senior Adrian Meeks, who combined to score 12 of the Bucs first 14 points.
“I didn’t know if they were ready to play,” Head Coach Ed DeChellis said. “I thought we’d play hard. We made some shots early; I’m proud of our team.”
DeChellis was not pleased with the way his team practiced the first couple of days after Monday’s loss to UNC-Greensboro and he let them know about it.
“We practiced to practice, we didn’t practice to win a championship,” he said, “I wanted the loss to Greensboro to hurt them; I wanted them to not like losing.”
The Bucs looked like a team that definitely did not like losing and they took out all their frustration from Monday’s loss on the Catamounts.
The Bucs led 48-25 at halftime and kept pouring it on in the second half.
“We stayed in it for 40 minutes,” Childress said. “They couldn’t get anything going.”
Besides leading the way for the Bucs with 18 points, Childress also grabbed nine rebounds, which was something that was missing in the loss to UNC-Greensboro.
“Coach had been telling us to get on the boards,” he said.
“We had our wings work on getting to the glass this week,” DeChellis said. “Both (D.J. McDuffie and Childress) did a good job rebounding the basketball.”
McDuffie also reached double digits in the scoring column for the Bucs with 11 points to go along with six rebounds and a team-high of five steals.
McDuffie, who has scored 918 points throughout his career, is closing in on 1,000, which would make him the 21st Buccaneer to eclipse that mark. McDuffie, however, is not concerned with the individual goals, but rather the team’s success.
“(The goal) is to keep winning; the accolades come later,” he said. “We didn’t play hard Monday. We had to focus and play hard today and get back on a winning streak.”
The Bucs also received tremendous plays from their two starting post players, Meeks and senior Renaldo Johnson.
Johnson scored 15 points on 7-8 shooting from the field, including a dunk off of a pass from McDuffie that put the Bucs up 32-6 with 12:05 to go in the first half. Johnson also added eight rebounds for the Bucs with five on the offensive end.
Meeks also had a big night for the Bucs with 10 points and six rebounds in just 14 minutes of action.
DeChellis was pleased to be able to rest his big men with an important matchup with the College of Charleston coming up Tuesday night.
“If you can rest your guys in games, its important, then young guys get some minutes and make some shots,” he said.
One of the DeChellis’ young guys that really came in and made some shots was freshman Ryan Carson, who netted 14 points for the Bucs on 6-9 shooting and 2-4 from behind the arc.
Carson also put the exclamation point on the Bucs win with a steal and then a dunk with only one-second remaining that capped the scoring at 98-47.
The Bucs also received solid play from the point guard position as junior Cliff Decoster returned from a sprained ankle to score nine points, dish out three assists and come up with three steals.
Backup point guard Sam Oatman also played well contributing a team-high six assists with only one turnover.
The Bucs will return to action with their showdown with the College of Charleston Tuesday night as the tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m.
The College of Charleston leads the South Division of the Southern Conference with an 18-3 record and 8-1 in conference play.
DeChellis knows his team will have to play hard to come away with the victory Tuesday night.
“We’ll have to bear down and play for 40 minutes,” he said.

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