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Offensive Woes Haunt Men's Basketball in 57-31 Loss At Wright State
Jan. 24, 2009
DAYTON, Ohio- The UIC men's basketball team did not make a field goal in the game's final 8:29 as the Flames fell to host Wright State, 57-31, at the Nutter Center on Saturday night. UIC (10-9, 3-6 Horizon League) made just 11 of 42 attempts from the field during the game in producing its lowest point output in 49 years. Scott VanderMeer led the Flames with 10 points and eight rebounds. It appeared early in the game that the Raiders (12-8, 6-3 Horizon League) would be the team on course for a rough offensive evening. UIC held Wright State to four points on 2-for-13 shooting in the game's first eight minutes, keeping the Raiders scoreless for nearly five minutes until Troy Tabler's layup ended the drought. However, UIC could only score nine points of its own during that time, with six coming on a trio of tough inside buckets by VanderMeer, keeping the Flames from taking full advantage of Wright State's opening shooting woes. The Flames then suffered through the first of their two major scoreless stretches just a short time later. Following Jelani Poston's bucket at the 6:43 mark of the first half, UIC would go without a field goal for the rest of the period and the first 1:51 of the second half. Wright State proceeded to outscore the Flames 14-0 heading into intermission and 16-2 over the course of nearly nine minutes before Josh Mayo made the first of back-to-back threes less than two minutes into the final stanza, cutting UIC's deficit down to six. That's as close as UIC would get. The Raiders outscored UIC 15-6 following Mayo's second trey to go up 15, and after Rob Eppinger's layup at the 8:30 mark trimmed the Flames' deficit down to 13, UIC would not score from the field again. Only two Zavion Neely free throws would be added to the Flames' total, as Wright State closed the game outscoring UIC 12-2.
Wright State's Todd Brown led all scorers with 23 points. The 31-point performance was the lowest total by a Flames team in 13 seasons under head coach Jimmy Collins and the lowest output by UIC since a 30-29 win over the University of Chicago during the 1959-60 campaign. "It wasn't that we lost, because Wright State is a good team," UIC head coach Jimmy Collin said in regards to what troubled him the most about the game. "It was our lack of fight." Wright State scored 21 points off of 18 UIC turnovers. UIC was without injured starting point guard Spencer Stewart (foot) for the third straight game, while forward Jeremy Buttell, who has been out with a high right ankle sprain since last week, dressed for the game but did not play. The Flames resume their four-game road trip next Wednesday, Jan. 28 at Green Bay. That game begins at 7 p.m. and airs live on 560 AM WIND. |
