High Point overcomes slow start to push past Radford in Big South quarterfinals

 High Point guard Duke Miles scored 20 to help key the Panthers' Friday victory.  (Photo:  Big South Conference)

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HIGH POINT, N.C. – Everything was in place. The students were partying outside on the lawn before entering the building, the Qubein Center was decked out, and the purple-and-white-clad group was ready to make noise.

Then Radford scored 18 of the first 22 points.

The Highlanders put the host High Point Panthers on the ropes early and staggered into a two-point halftime lead.

High Point would throw the next – and deciding – punch.

The Panthers did what they’ve done all season, unfurling a 19-4 burst out of the interval that staggered the somewhat depleted Highlanders. Radford would never again draw closer than seven, falling in a 77-63 decision in the first Big South tournament quarterfinal.

“Clearly, we weren’t quite ready to go at the start of the game,” High Point coach Alan Huss said after the game. “We knew that if we could weather that initial storm, our advantage would kick in. I thought that happened.”

One of the key determining factors in the contest centered around slowing Radford guard DaQuan Smith. The second-team all-league guard raced out of the gate and hit three of his first five attempts before being significantly slowed by the Panther defense. High Point guard Abdoulaye Thiam – and others – clamped down on Smith, limiting him to just one of his final 12.

“I think it was a little bit of everybody,” Huss said in recapping the defensive effort in slowing Smith. “We were switching a lot of those 1-4 ball screens and handoffs, so everybody got a little piece of him. He came out really hot at the beginning.”

“For whatever reason, that’s kind of been Radford’s M.O. this season. They shoot the ball really well in the first half. We watched the shots to try to figure out why. We just felt like they make difficult shots. They’ve got three guys that can make really difficult shots. We just talked about staying true to the process and if they make difficult ones, not to lose our mind. They’re too good. We knew that if we could just give them one (look), that was the key.”

What the defense couldn’t manage, the offense did. The Panthers missed their final six field goal tries but shot a blistering 58.6 percent (17-for-29) before the late cooldown. High Point (25-7) placed three scorers in double figures in the stanza, drawing a combined 37 points from Thiam, Duke Miles, and Juslin Bodo Bodo. Bodo had a double-double in the second period alone, grabbing 10 points and snaring 10 caroms and finishing by equaling the single-game tournament record of 19 boards.

“His impact on our program can’t be put into words,” Huss said. “He’s worked unbelievably hard. He had a hard time just keeping up with practice when he got here. He was the most impactful player, in my opinion, on the floor today. He controlled the offensive backboard. He controlled the defensive backboard. He was the centerpiece of our defense.”

Of course, Bodo’s dunks also provided quite the boost for the fired-up crowd.

“Just having that atmosphere, having 5,000 fans in there – it’s like playing in March Madness,” guard Duke Miles said. “Just to have it at home – it was a big advantage.”

“It’s been great. We came out a little slow and they gave us a boost,” Thiam added. “They’re just really good at keeping us focused.”

Radford (16-17) battled depth, injuries, and adversity as it had all season. The Highlanders played without forward Josiah Harris, who reaggravated an injury in Wednesday’s first-round contest against Upstate.

“This team has taught me to be flexible,” Radford coach Darris Nichols said after the game. “That’s one of our program’s pillars. We lost three guys and we had to adjust. Josiah Harris was out for most of the year. It challenged me to be flexible.”

“A lot of times – especially when you have adversity, and I had an adverse situation, obviously – you want to come back and write your own story. Sometimes it doesn’t go like that. You’ve just got to keep working and keep fighting, and that’s what I’ve challenged these guys to do.”

Despite the result, Nichols expressed his happiness with his team’s response.

“I think we (responded well) for the most part,” Nichols said. “I would have liked to have seen what this team would have been playing at full-strength and maxed out. We had to make so many adjustments throughout the season.”

“That’s what your job is as a coach, as a staff, and a team – to make adjustments. We’ve had to make a lot throughout the year. I thought our guys were really flexible with what we were doing and how we changed styles of play based off the injuries we had. There was a stretch there for maybe two months where we couldn’t play 5-on-5 in practice. We had to be creative. Credit our guys for being flexible in how we approached things. I thought we did the best job we could do.”

High Point advances to Saturday’s first semifinal to take on the winner of fourth-seeded Winthrop and fifth-seeded Longwood.