EMORY, Va. – The #5 Emory & Henry College Men's Basketball Team (15-11) bounced back from Saturday's loss to Shenandoah University (6-20) with an emphatic, 101-54, win over the 12th-seeded Hornets Tuesday evening in the First Round of the 2016 Old Dominion Athletic Conference Tournament.
The 101 points are the most scored by an E&H team in a postseason game while SU's 54 points ties for second fewest allowed by the Wasps. The 47-point margin of victory is also the largest in the history of the ODAC Tournament, topping a 36-point win by Randolph-Macon over Hampden-Sydney (84-48) in the 2010 quarterfinals.
It was the first win for the Wasps in postseason play since a quarterfinal victory over Bridgewater in 2004. E&H also reaches the ODAC Tournament Quarterfinals for the first time since the field was expanded to include the entire conference in 2009.
The game was close for the first three minutes but a 10-0 run covering 2:12 early in the first half put the Wasps up by double digits, 15-5. Emory & Henry extended its lead to 21 with 5:39 left in the first half and went up by a 50-26 margin at the break with a three-pointer by freshman guard Clif Conley (Galax, Va.).
Emory & Henry continued to pull away in the second half, going up by 30 at the 15:22 mark and reaching a 40-point margin with 7:20 left to play. The Wasps' largest lead came in the final minute when freshman forward Alic Wynn (Asheville, N.C.) hit a layup with 33 seconds to go, eclipsing the 100-point mark for the second time this year. The Hornets hit a free throw with three seconds remaining to make the final score 101-54.
The Wasps placed seven players in double figures in scoring, led by Conley with a game-high 13 points. He added nine rebounds, five assists and two steals while junior forward Brandon Self (Norfolk, Va.) had 12 points and completed the double-double with 10 boards. Wynn, freshman forward Aaron Ferguson (Princeton, W.Va.), junior guards Ryan Gravley (Austinville, Va.) and Myles Turner (Richmond, Va.) and sophomore forward Chase Branscomb (Bristol, Tenn.) each contributed 11 points to the effort.
As a team, Emory & Henry shot 53 percent (35-for-66) from the field and hit 21-of-29 (72.4%) of its free throw attempts. The Wasps assisted on 20 of 35 field goals and dominated the boards, 51-25, for a 21-12 lead on second-chance points.
Malcolm Clark led the way for Shenandoah with 12 points, while Gabriel Gonzalez had eight points on four-for-four shooting off the bench. The Hornets shot 22-for-55 (40%) for the game, scoring 38 of their 54 points inside the paint.
Emory & Henry advances to take on fourth-seeded Guilford College in the ODAC Tournament Quarterfinals. The game will take place at the Salem Civic Center on Friday afternoon at 3:00 p.m.
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-photo courtesy of Caleb Johnston, E&H '15