Published: November 25, 2008 11:36 pm      

Cougars shoot down Bluefield

In a mano-a-mano battle, Mountain State’s Anthony Pigram had the better half and, because of it, the Cougars got the better of Bluefield in a 110-90 shootout Tuesday night that was closer than the final score indicated.

Pigram had 30 points in a wild second half — and finished with a season-high 38 — as the Cougars rolled reached the century mark for the seventh time at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.

That offset a fine performance by Bluefield’s Curtis Dixon, who had 35 points, including 23 in the first half.

Pigram, with his team down six, 63-57, thanks to an 18-5 opening blitz by the Ramblin’ Rams to start the second half, then went red hot. He hit five threes in a 4:05 stretch that made that six-point deficit a 75-66 lead.

“Whoa, that was some shooting,” MSU coach Bob Bolen said afterward. “We’ve said all along that A.J. can score, and he can score in a variety of ways. He got hot.”

And then some.

“It started on defense with me,” Pigram said. “(Dixon) was my man and coach let me hear about it (the 23-point first half) at halftime.”

“I had to clamp down on him in the second half and that got me motivated. I don’t worry about offense, it’ll come. I’m the captain and I feel like it’s my responsibility to get the team going. If it’s shooting, I’ll shoot. If not, I’ll get my teammates the ball. I felt like I owed the team for my performance against the Cumberlands (an 89-73 loss last week).”

Breaking the Rams’ press, or how they did it, was key to getting Pigram open and getting the lead back.

“That just shows that coach Bolen knows what he’s doing,” Bluefield coach Jason Gillespie said. “They put him and the opposite side (of the ball) on the press and got the ball to the middle of the floor. When we stopped the ball, they found him and he was open. Give him credit for making the shots and coach Bolen for making that adjustment.”

Mountain State (7-1) ran the lead to 21, 94-73, with 4:55 left, but Bluefield didn’t back down.

Dixon and Coryon Ross had threes and then Dixon scored six straight, two on free throws after Bolen was hit with a technical and two more on a steal and slam, that made it 96-90 with 3:14 left.

Bluefield wouldn’t score again.

MSU scored the final 14 points of the game to win a game that wasn’t as lopsided as the final score indicated.

“We came to compete and we did that,” Gillespie said. “We want to get our program to the point they’re at now. Our other two losses came to (NAIA) Division I teams on last-second shots. Maybe we took a step back tonight, I don’t know. But you have to give them credit. They’re where they are for a reason.”

Anther albatross for Bluefield was its inability to hit threes in the second half. After going 6-for-14 in the first half, the Rams were just 6-of-27 in the second half. And several of those resulted in transition points for MSU.

“I think we fell in love with the three ball a little too much tonight,” Gillespie said. “And several of our misses led to run-outs by them. We knew they had a great transition game.”

“That was a great win by us tonight,” Bolen said. “That’s an excellent team. Ross and Dixon are as good a wing combo as you’ll see. And Jason’s style fits the guys he’s recruiting. Great team, well-coached ... I think the fans who braved the cold tonight saw a great college basketball game.”

MSU led by seven, 52-45, at the half.

There were several early ties and lead changes before MSU went up 13. But thanks to Dixon, the Ramblin’ Rams were able to keep it close and used a big second-half opening run to take a short-lived lead.

Six of the eight Cougars who played tallied double figures. In addition to Pigram’s 38, Bo Harris had 15, Marcus Hunter 14, Ermin Tarcin 12 (and 10 rebounds) and Tony Brown and Greg Grimes 10 each.

Ross had 15 for Bluefield (2-3) and Omar Reed 11.

Mountain State will be back at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center Saturday hosting Life in a 4 p.m. tipoff. Life is a former back-to-back national champion which folded its basketball program five years ago. It is in the process of bringing the team back. Recently, Life beat Union, Tenn., which had beaten five ranked preseason teams, including No. 1 Robert Morris.

Life is among the several new members of the Independent Region, the region to which MSU belongs.

— E-mail: demorrison@

register-herald.com



MSU 110, BLUEFIELD 90

BLUEFIELD (2-3)

Johnny Witherspoon 2-10 3-4 7, Curtis Dixon 12-21 5-5 35, Coryon Ross 6-13 0-0 15, Laron Culmer 2-3 0-0 4, Omar Reed 4-12 2-3 11, Keenan Rainer 0-3 2-2 2, Phillip Frazier 0-0 0-0 0, Mike Roundtree 0-1 0-0 0, Ted Obute 0-2 0-0 0, John-Michael Bohon 0-0 0-0 0, Borgia M’Bala 0-0 0-0 0, James Childress 2-9 0-0 6, Domenic Zaccaria 0-1 0-0 0, D.J. Goshay 2-4 6-7 10. Totals 30-79 18-21 90.

MOUNTAIN STATE (7-1)

Anthony Pigram 13-19 2-2 38, Tony Brown 4-10 2-2 10, Andrew Lee 1-6 3-4 5, Bo Harris 5-10 3-5 15, Ermin Tarcin 3-8 6-8 12, Marcus Hunter 6-10 1-2 14, Greg Grimes 3-7 4-4 10, Rod Green 2-3 2-2 6. Totals 37-73 23-29 110.

Halftime—MSU 53-45. 3-Point Goals—Bluefield 12-41 (Witherspoon 0-4, Dixon 6-12, Ross 3-8, Reed 1-5, Rainer 0-2, Obute 0-1, Childress 2-8, Zaccaria 0-1); Mountain State 13-25 (Pigram 10-15, Brown 0-2, Lee 0-1, Harris 2-3, Tarcin 0-1, Hunter 1-2, Grimes 0-1). Fouled Out—Bluefield (Dixon); MSU (Lee). Rebounds—Bluefield 43 (Dixon 11); Mountain State 48 (Tarcin 8). Assists—Bluefield 20 (Witherspoon 8); Mountain State 22 (Brown 7). Total Fouls—Bluefield 25; Mountain State 19. A—1,123.