PIKEVILLE, Ky. – The first road test of the season for the Campbellsville University men's basketball came up just short for the Tigers as Pikeville earned an 83-76 win at the Appalachian Wireless Arena Tuesday night.
The largest lead by either team was a nine-point advantage for the Bears at 69-60 over halfway through the second half before CU went on a 7-0 run to make it 69-67 for UPike at the final media timeout with 5:33 left in the game.
Pikeville was able to finish the game off outscoring Campbellsville 14-9 to close out the game hitting their last four free throw attempts to ice the game. The Bears were able to maintain a lead through most of the game as the Tigers held early 2-0 and 4-3 leads before regaining leads of 38-35 and eventually heading into the half 38-37.
UPike was able to grab the lead back quickly into the second half and never relinquished that lead for the remainder of the game despite CU coming within a basket on multiple occasions during the final 20 minutes of play. The Bears were more efficient in the second half as they boosted their shooting percentage from 48 to 64 percent from half to half while also shooting 50 percent from three-point range in the second.
Campbellsville had two players in double figures led by the game-high 26 points form
Taiveyhon Mason as he added a career-high nine rebounds to lead the Tigers in that category as well.
Freshman
Brayden Sebastian had the best game of his young career as he finished with an efficient 16 points on 5-of-6 shooting from the field including going 3-for-4 from three-point range while adding four rebounds.
The Bears had a deeper offensive attack led by forward Jacob Brown as he led UPike with 17 points, but four other players scored in double figures for Pikeville. Malcolm Green finished with 14 points with Jordan Perry, Taevon Horton, and Korbin Spencer all adding 11 points for the Bears in the game.
The Tigers will get back to the court this weekend when they host Martin Methodist this Saturday at 4 p.m. ET at the Powell Athletic Center. CU will host the Redhawks as the Mid-South Conference shuffled the schedule from their originally scheduled Jan. 16 matchup to take advantage of both teams' availability.
