Johnson C. Smith Golden Bulls

JCSU Basketball Defeats Carson-Newman, 79-51

12/17/2014 8:37:00 PM

Box Score Charlotte, N.C. (Dec. 17, 2014) –  The Johnson C. Smith men's basketball team held visiting Carson-Newman to 28.8% shooting and forced 20 turnovers to take a 79-51 win on Wednesday evening at Brayboy Gym.

Neither team started particularly well, as the teams traded turnovers on their first two possessions.  JCSU's defense would clamp down, holding the Carson-Newman offense in check for the first 7:45 of the first half as the Eagles missed their first seven field goal attempts. 

Carson Brooks ended the drought for Carson-Newman at the 12:15 mark with a layup in traffic.  JCSU responded with a three-pointer from Diondre Pratt (Morven, N.C.), his second of the game, to extend the Golden Bull lead to 16-7.  Following an Eagle turnover, their seventh of the game, Raston Brown (Hephizibah, Ga.) posted a fast break layup, forcing a timeout for Carson-Newman at the 11:35 mark, trailing 18-7.

Carson-Newman would continue to struggle, as Pratt would force another turnover, the Eagles 10^th and turned it into a Golden Bull layup to extend the lead to 22-9.

The Golden Bulls would extend their lead to 27-15 following a three-pointer from Joshua Linson (San Antonio, Tex.) from the left wing with 4:57 on the first-half clock.

At the end of the first half, Linson rebounded a Robert Davis, III (West Friendship, Md.) miss and hit a soft jumper to provide the 40-28 lead at the break.

JCSU turned shot 41.7% in the first half and forced 12 Eagle turnovers that lead to 12 Golden Bull points.

In the second half, JCSU opened with a bang when Alandre Davis (Florence, S.C.) threw down an alley-oop dunk on a pass from Linson at 18:49 to extend the lead to 42-28.

The JCSU lead would swell to 49-31 when Brown made another twisting layup with a pass from Pratt.  Alandre Davis would add a powerful one-handed slam at 11:30 to make it 57-34 JCSU, creating a buzz throughout the sparse Brayboy Gym crowd.  Stedmon Lemon (Lithonia, Ga.) would connect on a layup, and was fouled.  Lemon added the subsequent free throw to make it 60-36 JCSU.

JCSU's Gabon Williams (Charlotte, N.C.) knocked down a three-pointer for a 70-45 JCSU lead with 5:02 left.  Malik Ford (Salisbury, N.C.) would provide the exclamation mark on the game with a two-handed jam with 1:00 left to put JCSU up 79-49.  All told, the Golden Bulls would limit the Eagles to only two field goals over the final 7:00.

 In all, JCSU finished 31-65 (47.7%) from the field, including an 8-22 (36.4%) mark from three-point range.  Carson-Newman's 15-52 (28.8%) outing was the second-worst in program history.  The previous low was an 18% performance against Georgia College in 2011.  The win improves the Golden Bulls to 5-5 on the season while Carson-Newman falls to 4-7.

JCSU's Diondre Pratt had team-high 15 points.  Raston Brown finished with 12 while Joshua Linson and Stedmon Lemon tallied 11 each.  Carson-Newman got 17 points from Carson Brooks.

JCSU will play their final home game of the 2014 calendar year on Saturday, Dec. 20 when they host Catawba at 4:00 p.m.