It was College of Charleston’s Tony Mitchell who stole the game Saturday with a career-high five 3-point field goals to give the Cougars the edge. In front of a crowd of 3,712, ETSU was handed their first Southern Conference loss of the season, 79-72. The loss drops the Bucs to 2-4 on the season, 0-1 in Southern Conference play, while raising the Cougars to (3-1, 1-0).
“We kind of went back and forth for the first 35 minutes,” ETSU coach Murry Bartow said. “It came down really to a five-minute game where at home we think we’d win most of those, and they just played a lot better than us the last five minutes.”
Bartow was right, the first minutes went back and forth between the teams, three Cougars netted baskets and junior guard Ben Rhoda hit seven in the first few plays.
“I was fired up, and got a couple of plays early,” Rhoda said of his first few baskets.
Dillion Sneed hit one basket and two free throws to make the score 13-11, before the crowd erupted with the sight of junior forward Brad Nuckles checking into the game with 14:35 left in the first half. Nuckles had been out for the past four games.
A sudden charge of energy came into the Bucs’ line-up, outscoring the Cougars 22-21, and pulling within one, 34-33, at the half.
“I’m glad to be back, it’s been two weeks,” Nuckles said. “I’m just ready to get back out with the team.”
Bartow also felt that gaining Nuckles back was an encouraging spot of the night.
“We thought that we’d give him 10 or 12 minutes, but he was playing well so we just decided to give him more minutes,” Bartow said. “He’s probably hurting now, but it was good to have him back.”
After the half, the Bucs came out and battled back and forth with the Cougars, but were unable to stop Mitchell, who scored all five 3-pointers in the second half.
“Bad shots, lots of turnovers, defensively we couldn’t stop them,” Rhoda said. “We just need to show up our defense a little better, offense will go a little better, we’ll battle better. We played more as a team, but obviously we came out with a loss so it wasn’t real good.”
ETSU first lead in the second half came at 10:16 left, 57-54, on a Travis Strong steal and a Tim Smith three.
ETSU scoring leader Tim Smith scored a double-double on the game with 15 points, 10 rebounds, followed by Nuckles who lit up the scoreboard with 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds. Rhoda and Sneed each netted 12 points, with seven and nine rebounds, respectively.
Mitchell led the Cougars with 21 points. Stanley Jackson scored 13 points, while teammates Bernard Jackson and Jeff Horowitz tallied 12 a piece.
Turnovers did prove to be the story of the night for the Bucs. ETSU recorded 24 turnovers, compared to the 10 tallied by the visiting Cougars.
“Twenty-four turnovers at home are way too many,” Bartow said. “The College of Charleston had a lot of good things. Ten turnovers on the road is a good number, 10 steals is a good number, I thought Mitchell really hurt us in the second half.”
The Bucs have no time to think about the loss. On Tuesday the Bucs will travel to face a tough Central Michigan team.
“We’re a little down, we’re all disappointed,” Bartow said. “We won 27 games a year ago so we’re not real used to be sitting here at 2-4, but it’s a long season and I kind of kick myself for the early schedule.”
“Now we’re at Central Michigan with a very inexperienced team, with Brad (Nuckles) being out the whole year,” he said. “In addition to all that we’re just not playing that well. If you add all that up that’s why we’re sitting here with the record we’ve got.”
With time comes experience and Bartow is hoping that come tournament time, the men will be ready.
“We’ve just got to be patient, we can’t panic,” he said. “We’re disappointed, and we’re down, but there’s only one team out of this conference going to the NCAA tournament and that will be decided in March, it’s not going to be decided right now. So, there’s no time to panic. It’s time to coach the heck out of them.”Game Notes
* Sneed, Rhoda, Travis Strong, James Anthony and Smith started the game for the Bucs. Sneed had a career-high 30-point game against Alabama last Wednesday.
* ETSU baseball senior catcher and 2004 NCAA batting leader Caleb Moore was recognized at the first timeout.
* Fox Sports Network covered the game. It was the second game of the week on FSN featuring ETSU.
* Super Fan was in the stands for the first time in several games.
* A controversial no-call on goal-tending in the second half ignited the fans, bringing some of them out of the stands.

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