By Zack Ciboth, Sports Editor
The UNC Pembroke men’s basketball team got the opportunity to take on one of the country’s best teams in the Duke Blue Devils last night in the final pre-season exhibition for the Braves. The Blue Devils started off fast and rolled to a 109-64 win in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
The #2 ranked Blue Devils started the game off by going on a 14-0 run early before the Braves could score their first point off a layup from Dallas Gardner. But Duke kept pouring on early extending their lead to 25-5 and eventually 47-14 with just 5:30 to go in the first quarter. Duke went into the half with a 59-24 lead at halftime.
The leading scorers for the Braves were: Gardner with nine points and two rebounds, Jamarvious Jones follwed with five points at the half, Nygell Verdier and Josh Berenbaum had four each.
“I think I was a lot more frustrated at halftime here than I was at Houston. I thought here, whether it’s the bright lights, whether it’s the fans, whether it’s our families that are in the crowd, I thought we tried to do too much individually, and I’m never a big fan of that,” UNCP coach Drew Richards said. “I don’t care what the score is. I don’t care how many threes or whatever they make. Its’s about us trying to get better from this moment.”
The Blue Devils continued to pour into their lead in the second half, but the Braves showed a lot of positives in the second half compared to the first hald of play. The Blue Devils finished things off in the end for the win.
“We did, I thought, at times, get better, whether it was execution, whether it was defensively, we had a couple possessions that I thought we were really locked in. But I thought we played a lot more brand of basketball that we’re accustomed to in the second half than we did the first,” Richards said.
Gardner finished the game with 21 points, eight rebounds, Verdier followed finishing with nine points, Jones and Elijah Cobb each recorded eight points.
Some positives for the Braves were they brought down 31 rebounds, five less than the Blue Devils 36. Both teams scored 38 points each off their bench and UNCP finished two points less than Duke in the paint scoring 32 compared to their 34.
The Braves will officially begin their season on Saturday when they take on Emporia State at 8 p.m. in the HOF Classic in Lakeland, Florida.