GREENSBORO, N.C. – Offense wins games, but defense wins championships. And it was the less glamourous end that set the tone at the Ragan-Brown Field House on Wednesday night as the no. 9 Guilford College men's basketball team picked up an essential Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) victory over Roanoke College, 53-43.
Ranked third in Region VI coming in and advancing to 21-3 on the season, 12-3 in ODAC play, the Quakers also boost their NCAA Tournament resume with another regionally ranked victory over the Maroons, who sat in seventh in the latest ranks, and now stand at 5-2 against such foes. RC, on the other hand, falls to 15-9, 8-7 against conference competition.
Elsewhere, in the ODAC, Hampden-Sydney took care of Virginia Wesleyan tonight, locking Guilford in as the third seed entering the conference tournament that begins a week from Friday.
Both teams shot 30% or below from the field and 25% or worse from range in the contest. GC held the maroons to a season-low 43 points in the game, with their .300 field goal percentage and .207 mark from range also becoming their season-lows. Guilford did not fare much better, eclipsing their season-low in scoring by just one tally, but they are 2-0 in those contests nonetheless.
Tyler Dearman (Greensboro, N.C.) came alive in the second half, pouring in 18 of his game-high 20 points on the night despite it being an off-evening from the field, shooting just 5-of-22, 1-for-8 from range. However, he was perfect in his nine attempts from the charity stripe, adding five rebounds, four steals, two assists, and two blocks.
He was the only Quaker in double-figures, although Dawson Edwards (Durham, N.C.) and Luke Proctor (Apex, N.C.) pitched in eight apiece with the latter distributing a team-high three assists.
Julius Birch (Greensboro, N.C.) scored just seven points but pilled up the rebounds, matching a career-high with 17 including four on the offensive end, leading all players in both categories.
Marcus Morgan led the Maroons with 14 points with Joshua Morse joining him in double-digits with ten.
Leading the guests in rebounds on the evening was Justin Kuthan with 11 while Joshua McClary contributed nine points, four steals, and two blocks in reserve.
The defenses set the tone in the first half with just five scoring sequences over the first six and a half minutes of play, all of them resulting in a lead change. Zach Rosenthal finally ended that trend by knocking down a triple at the 13:13 mark, giving the Maroons what would ultimately be their largest lead of the evening, 10-6.
Guilford countered by piecing together a 9-2 stretch highlighted by a pair of Edwards three-balls over the ensuing six minutes of play. Morgan, who accounted for ten of Roanoke's 18 points in the half, evened things at 15 before a pair of Guilford two-pointers and a Maroons' trey made the score 19-18 at the break.
Both squads shot exactly 7-for-26 in the first half with Roanoke making four three-pointers against the Quakers' three, but a pair of free throws accounted for the GC advantage. Guilford also received nearly half of their points from their second unit in the stanza, with Edwards scoring eight of the team's nine off the bench in the frame.
Kuthan opened the second half scoring with a two-handed jam, but the advantage it created proved to be Roanoke's last as the Quaker defense locked down. GC came away with steals on four of the Maroons' ensuing five possessions, with Dearman accounting for three of them, taking it himself for the fastbreak score twice, and deferring for a Gabe Proctor three once during the sequence. A slick Dearman feed to a cutting Burch down the lane extended the run to 11-0 on the other side of a media timeout before Morse finally ended the Maroons' near-six-minute scoring drought with a pair from the line.
Just inside of the ten-minute mark, Roanoke whittled the lead down to seven, but a seven-point spurt extended the advantage back to 14 with six-and-a-half left and it would remain in double-digits for the next four minutes of game time, peaking at 15 after a Dearman trey with just under three to play. The Maroons made things interesting, getting within two possessions on a couple of occasions with under 60 seconds to play, but Dearman and Luke Proctor combined to go six-of-six from the stripe the rest of the way to ice the victory, 53-43.
Guilford secured five steals in the second half, turning them into ten points in the stanza, helping them pull away, while their flawless 13-for-13 showing at the line in the half helped them hold off Roanoke in the win.
The Quakers return to the floor for their final tune-up ahead of the ODAC Tournament when they host Bridgewater College for a Senior Day clash on Saturday with tipoff set for 2:00 PM.