By Triangle sports staff
The Wingate men’s basketball team won its sixth straight game Saturday afternoon at Cuddy Arena, beating Tusculum 87-78 to remain unbeaten at 5-0 in the South Atlantic Conference.
The Bulldogs, who are 10-3 overall, will battle fellow league unbeaten Catawba (7-1, 5-0 SAC) at home Wednesday night in a game for sole possession of first place.
As it has all season, Wingate used a balanced attack to run out to a 20-point lead with 6:04 left in the game, and then survived a furious full court press from the Pioneers the rest of the way to hang on and win by nine.
Three players scored in double figures for the Bulldogs, who shot 50 percent from the field, led by point guard Donell Nixon (18 points), center Vontrez Roberts (15) and forward Josh Massey (12). Roberts and Nixon also contributed a team-high seven rebounds apiece.
Tusculum did its best to deny Wingate three-point looks, so the Bulldogs sought instead to drive the ball to the basket, which led to easy shots and a 31-for-38 performance at the free throw line.
“We’re finding different ways to win, and I kind of like it,” Wingate coach Brian Good said. “We’ve got a lot of different ways to win now and we can celebrate that, but I’m sure Catawba is going to come in here with guns a-blazing Wednesday.”
Good’s team has been very efficient and unselfish on offense throughout the first half of the season, ranking among the top 30 in Division 2 for assist-turnover ratio (1.42, 23rd) and assists per game (17.0).
The Bulldogs, who have eclipsed the 100-point mark in two victories (including 110 at Coker), are in the top 50 nationally in scoring offense at 83.8 points per game. All five starters are averaging in double figures, led by senior Nixon (16.8 ppg) and junior Massey (16.2), who tops the team in rebounding with 8.4 boards per game.
Massey, a versatile transfer from Western Carolina who’s in his second year at Wingate, has been busy filling up the stat sheet this season. The 6-6 junior from Monroe’s 1.64 steals per game and five double-doubles both rank in the top 40 among D2 players nationally.
Tusculum was the first of a three-game SAC homestand for the Bulldogs, who return to Cuddy to play the rival Indians on Wednesday at 7 p.m. and Saturday for a 4 p.m. matchup with Mars Hill.
“After our last loss [88-85 at Bluefield on Dec. 2], we got together and decided that we can’t drop those kind of games and that we needed to flip things around and get on a roll,” 6-8 senior Roberts said. “Because we really want to win this thing [SAC title] this year.”
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