Cavs Run in AAC Men’s Hoop Tourney Short Lived

February 21, 2007
Game Stats

Bristol, TN – The wrong kind of streak continued and resulted in the UVA-Wise men’s basketball run in the Appalachian Athletic Conference tournament short lived with an opening round 73-62 loss to Bryan College.

The Highland Cavaliers (7-24) finished the 2006-07 campaign by dropping seven in a row and nine of its past 10 contests. The Lions (6-23) prevailed for the second time in three meetings.

Sophomore Zydrunas Rackauskas posted his 15 th double-double in 28 games with 15 points and a game-best 10 rebounds. Junior Jarred Soles added 13 points. Travis Brannon chipped in eight tallies and eight boards while Seth Gibson added eight points. UVA-Wise dominated on the boards, 42-25, but shot just 32.3% (20 of 62) compared to Bryan’s 52.3% (23 of 44) and committed seven more turnovers.

Jerome Stancil and Versell Wells both hit for 17 points to lead Bryan. Tyler Cooke had 10 points as the other double figure scorer.

Each team led by four points and the game was tied 11 times in the opening half before a 35-35 intermission score.

The Cavs opened a three-point lead, 40-37, on a Rackauskas in the opening two minutes of the latter half. Trailing 42-41, Bryan went on a game-deciding 15-2 spurt to bound ahead 56-44 with 9:56 in the game.

UVA-Wise scored the next two baskets by Bryan Sexton and Soles to cut it to eight, 56-48, but would get no closer. Bryan made the preceeding bucket and its lead was never under double digits again before winning 73-62.