BREVARD, N.C. - The Brevard College men's basketball team led No. 5 Lincoln Memorial at the half, but the Tornados fell victim to the Railsplitters' suffocating defense in the second 20 minutes as LMU came away with the 87-75 win.
Brevard (10-16, 8-12 SAC) outdueled the nation's fifth ranked team through 20 minutes of action, leading 44-43 at the break behind 14 points from center Alex Moe. The Tornados grabbed the lead on a pair of Moe free throws with 14:43 to play in the half and built their lead on the next several possessions, only losing the lead for 1:34 of game time over the remainder of the half.
Brevard's advantage peaked at eight points at the 11:49 mark of the first half, coming on an athletic play by the Tornados. Lincoln Memorial's (25-1, 19-1 SAC)Dorian Pinson looked to feed the ball into the post but the pass was tipped away by a leaping Darius Moose and corralled by Trevon Shaw. The duo broke away down the court and Shaw found Moose as he wove through traffic, allowing Moose to knock down a reverse layup that pushed the advantage to 18-10.
The Railsplitters fought back, however, trimming Brevard's lead to a single point with a buzzer-beating layup by Curtis McMillion to answer Moe's third three-pointer of the game. LMU came out firing on all cylinders in the second period, allowing Brevard to stay in the game early in the half before a decisive run around the midway point.
The Railsplitters began to pull away as both squads entered a prolonged scoring drought. The teams combined to go 0-for-8 from the field over a three-minute span that ended with a Moose layup at the 10:42 mark of the second stanza. Both teams committed several fouls and turnovers as the game's pace slowed to a crawl with the bulk of the shot attempts coming from the free throw line.
The second half also saw the emergence of Emanuel Terry as the Railsplitters' weapon of choice. The freshman forward finished with 15 points and had a game-high 11 rebounds, all of which came in the second half. Lincoln Memorial outpaced Brevard 16-10 in points in the paint over the final 20 minutes and had eight second chance points to Brevard's zero, largely due to Terry's influence.
Brevard saw its deficit swell to as many as 18 points over the game's final minutes but used a 6-0 run to cut the LMU lead to 12 with 2:53 to play. The Tornados would get no closer and fell by an eventual 87-75 score.
Moe had a breakout game for Brevard. The junior center was Brevard's leading scorer. He set a season high with 20 points, three off of his career-best mark, and contributed four rebounds. He tied a career high with four triples and was one away from his career high of eight made field goals. Darius Moose contributed 16 points, six rebounds, and four assists in his final home game in a Brevard uniform, while Trevon Shaw had 15, four, and three, respectively.
Brevard held its own on the boards, getting outrebounded 38-33 against a team that ranks third in Division II with a +11.1 rebounding margin on the season. The Tornados also shot 42.1 percent against the team leading the nation in field goal percentage defense, nearly six percentage points above what Railsplitter opponents have averaged this season.
The Tornados now sit in sole possession of ninth place in the SAC standings, one game behind Coker and Anderson for the seventh spot. Brevard next travels to Mars Hill for an 8:00 p.m. matchup on Wednesday evening.
