Continuing his hot shooting, vs VMI this week Nicholas Paulos has continued his hot stretch at home

By Matthew Johnson, Sports Editor

Published in print Jan.21, 2015

After falling to Western Carolina the previous Saturday, the men’s basketball team ended their four game losing streak last Wednesday by defeating the VMI Keydets at the Greensboro Coliseum.

The win for the Blue and Gold, the first in the new year, dropped the Keydets to 6-12 overall and 2-5 in conference play.

The victory pushed the slumping Spartans to 6-13 and a Southern Conference record of 2-4.

In their first match-up against Duggar Baucom’s led program since 2003, the Spartans started and finished strong to earn their first victory of 2015.

The VMI Keydets had previously left the Southern Conference (SoCon) following the 2003 season to join the Big South Conference.

The program returned following their impressive CIT Tournament run where they fell in the Semifinals of last year’s postseason.

In this contest in front of an attendance of 1986 fans, the Blue and Gold were led by Junior forward Kayel Locke who had a strong game of 19 points to go with eight rebounds.

With the play of Locke, RJ White, Diante Baldwin and Jordy Kuiper each combined for a total of 37 rebounds out of the team’s total of 53.

Tthe Blue and Gold dominated the boards by gaining 13 more rebounds than the Keydets 40.

Winning on both defense and offense in the area of the court usually reseved among the trees in the paint, the Spartans also set up nice near the basket as Wes Miller’s squad beat VMI in points in the paint 34 to 22.

The victory for the Spartans was highlighted by their defensive effort against a VMI team that had led the Southern Conference in points per game with 84.1.

Even more impressive in holding VMI to only 63 point was that the Keydets led Division I Basketball, not just among conference teams, in three pointers.

The Spartans only allowed nine makes from beyond three out of VMI’s 40 attempts to hold the Keydets to a shooting percentage of 22 percent.

Offensively, the Spartans played efficient basketball even without the team’s leading scorer, Tevon Saddler who suffered a knee injury against Furman on January 8.

As of now, there is no timetable for the return of the sophomore guard.

The team overall shot 45.2 percent from the field and made six of 18 three point attempts to finish with a percentage of 33.3 percent.

Closing the contest similar to the opening minute of the game, the Blue and Gold were hot to begin the contest.

The Spartans quickly began the game on an 8-2 run with sophomore guard Clay Byrd and Nicholas Paulos hitting their first three pointers of the match.

Byrd finished with five points in the contest as senior forward Nicholas Paulos hit three three-point attempts for the game, and performed well on the defensive side of the ball with three blocks.

Head coach Wes Miller was proud of his team was proud of his unit for sticking together to get the win after their struggles to begin the season had unfortunately carried over into the new year.

In an interview with UNCGSpartans.com, Miller explained, “We have made a lot of effort to do it right and do it like we do it practice. Not everything went right for us on every possession, but I was proud of our guys for battling through the low points and it was nice to get the result tonight” Miller added.

“Hopefully, this is something we can build on going forward.”

VMI were led by forward Philip Anglade who posted a double-double for the Keydets with 10 rebounds and 11 points.

The famed three pointers of VMI and their renown press defense could not sustain the Keydets following halftime as the score was 32-38 the Spartans way at halftime.

After halftime, nearly taking control of the game being down by only one after come backing from their deficit, Paulos hti a key three pointer to keep VMI away from the lead.

With a well played victory, the Spartans will look to carry over their strong play on the road Thursday and Saturday against Samford and Chattanooga.