UNC Recap: Northern Colorado basketball never gave in and fought back from 17 down to tie West Virginia with 6:18 remaining before falling to the Mountaineers 69-61.
UNC went on a 16-2 run to tie WVU in the second half as they clamped down on defense and started to hit some shots on offense. Redshirt freshman Tre’Shon Smoots led the charge scoring all six of his points during it and adding in an on of his six assists.
While the Bears battled back to tie if on a pair of Kai Edwards free throw’s West Virginia responded with a 10-0 run to pull away.
Troy’s Take: For the second game in a row, the Bears could’ve “touched the wall” as Jeff Linder likes to say and just gone on auto pilot to finish a game after getting behind big in a hostile environment. For the second game in a row, UNC didn’t do that, instead mounting a charge that brought them all the way back to even in the second half.
Unfortunately, for the second game in a row, the home team went on a run to finish off UNC’s threat and send the Bears away with a loss.
There was a lot of praise for the fight in the Bears following the game, but, even more notable, UNC performed well despite the travel adventure getting to Morgantown — an adventure that was added to Tuesday with another lengthy flight delay to get back to Denver. If you missed the story, the Bears were to fly from Des Moines Sunday morning, with a quick turnaround in Detroit to then fly to Pittsburgh and bus the hour-fifteen to Morgantown. A delay in Des Moines screwed up meeting the connector in Detroit, so the trip then became “fly into Detroit and bus 5 1/2 hours”.
All told, UNC spent time in five states on Sunday, didn’t get in a practice until Monday’s shootaround in preparation for the game, and still challenged a very strong defensive team on the road.
As Linder notes in our post-game conversation, this program doesn’t hang its hat on “moral victories”, but there’s still something to be said about the resiliency UNC showed in not allowing any of the travel to give them an easy excuse to call it a night early.
Next Up: Boston University at Cancun Classic; Tue, Nov. 26, 1:00pm
Post-game Interview with HC Jeff Linder:
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