Otis leads Bruins past Trojans

Staff

Published Friday, December 3, 2004

The Troy University men's basketball team had no answer for Belmont's Nick Otis.

Otis poured in a game-high 24 points to lead the Bruins past Troy, 86-73, Thursday night in both teams' Atlantic Sun Conference opener.

Otis also recorded six rebounds and three assists in the win.

For Belmont, the win marked the first time the Bruins have scored a win over Troy since joining the Atlantic Sun four years ago.

With the Bruins leading by just one point with 10:19 to play in the game, Otis sank a 3-point basket from the right wing to extend the Belmont lead to four points.

Troy's Bobby Dixon answered by driving to the free throw line, pulling up and knocking down the mid-range jump shot to draw Troy to within two points at 58-56.

Belmont again turned to Otis, who once again had the answer from the right wing, knocking down another of his eight 3-point baskets to lift Belmont to a 61-56 lead with 9:41 left to play.

That shot sparked a 17-5 Belmont run that gave the Bruins a 14-point lead with 6:04 left in the game.

From there, the Bruins never looked back and the Trojans never made a run.

"They got on a little bit of a roll there, but what hurt us was that we didn't make any shots during that stretch," Troy head coach Don Maestri said. "You're not going to be too successful if you don't score some points. We won't win if we don't start shooting a little better than we did tonight."

Troy placed five players in double figures, including senior forward Eddie Baker who tallied a team high 18 points on 6-of-14 shooting. The senior also pulled down a team leading nine rebounds.

"Man, we just couldn't hit any shots tonight," Baker said. "That's it. Those guys got hot and we couldn't seem to find the basket. That's hard to defend when they are whipping the ball around like that.

"You get running around and can't get in position and on top of that they were making everything they threw up. They looked like us two years ago when we had Ben (Fletcher) on the team."

Troy connected on just 25-of-72 attempts, including a 10-of-38 performance from 3-point range.

The Bruins shot their way past Troy by knocking down 30-of-58 attempts, including a 16-for-28 performance from the field in the second half. Belmont also warmed up from behind the arc hitting 11-of-20 attempts in the second half.

"I thought we made some bad decisions with the ball tonight when it was still a tight game," Maestri said. "We took some bad shots and rushed some things a time or two, and then they came back down and made some shots and put us in a situation where we needed to be even smarter and we made some more bad decisions and dug a hole four ourselves. You have to credit Belmont, though. Those guys played a smart game and made some big shots."

"We probably rushed some things trying to get back in the game, and really ended up shooting ourselves out of it," Baker said.

The Trojans managed to shoot their way into a 41-39 halftime lead, by connecting on 13-of-34 shots from the floor in the first half, including a 7-of-18 performance from the 3-point line.

Belmont matched Troy virtually shot for shot knocking down 14-of-30 attempts from the field and connecting on 8-of-23 3-point attempts.

The two teams exchanged baskets for much of

the first half, before the Trojans reeled off a 15-6 run with 12:18 seconds left to play in the half to take a 21-12 lead. The Bruins would answer, however, mounting a 21-12 run of their own over the next 8:25 to tie the ball game 33-33.

Dixon broke the tie, knocking down a free throw with 2:56 remaining to play in the opening half. That sparked an 8-6 run to close the half and give Troy a two-point cushion heading into the intermission.

Troy will be back in action Saturday when the Trojans play host Lipscomb University.

The game is set to begin at 7 p.m.

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