Cougs fall to WCU

Western Carolina 65, Charleston 57

The College of Charleston's up- and-down basketball season took another downward turn Saturday at John Kresse Arena.

The Cougars shot 35.3 percent from the field and committed 21 turnovers in a 65-57 Southern Conference loss to Western Carolina.

"It's not as bad as it could be, but it was a bad loss," said guard Andrew Goudelock, who led the Cougars with 15 points. "We could have won this game, should have won this game. Down the stretch we didn't make plays. We have no one to blame but ourselves."

Charleston (12-14, 7-9 SoCon) was coming off a 79-73 victory over Chattanooga Thursday night, while the Catamounts (8-17, 4-11 SoCon) were coming off a 57-51 loss to The Citadel, previously winless in the conference.

"We really made a commitment to fight for the whole 40 minutes this game and to respond after our poor showing on Thursday," said Catamounts' forward Jake Robinson. "We had two rough days thinking about that loss."

The Catamounts didn't exactly come out with guns blazing, shooting 39.3 percent from the field, but they got 25 points from guard Brandon Giles and seemingly made every big play down the stretch.

Charleston had cut a nine-point WCU advantage to 54-53, thanks in large part to a foul and a technical foul against WCU's Brigham Waginger.

The Cougars made all four free throws, and after rebounding a miss by the Catamounts, had the ball with a chance to take the lead. Charleston turned it over, and after Giles got to the basket for a layup, the Cougars turned it over again.

With the shot clock winding down, Giles made a turnaround jumper from just inside the top of the key.

It was a parade to the foul line the rest of the way, with WCU making 7 of 8 free throws in the final 31.5 seconds to put the game away.

"It's a tough loss," said Charleston coach Bobby Cremins. "We weren't ourselves today. We were really out of sync offensively. You have to give WCU a lot of credit. They came in and played smart basketball. They hit some great shots."

In addition to smart basketball, the Catamounts also made the Cougars pay for their mistakes, scoring 18 points off turnovers.

"It doesn't have anything to do with them," Goudelock said. "Whatever happens to us is on us. We cut it to one and had three turnovers. When we cut the lead down to one, that's when we should take care of the ball the most, not turn it over the most."

The Cougars were sloppy with the basketball from the beginning, and 13 first-half turnovers helped stake Western Carolina to a 30-27 lead.

Goudelock kept the Cougars in it, scoring 10 points on four of five shooting from the field while rest of the team was six of 20.

Charleston took the lead briefly in the second half, but trailing by three, WCU went on a 12-0 run over a four-minute span to lead the Cougars 54-45 with 4:24 to play.

"We fought back, and then our focus was gone," Goudelock said. "Our focus was somewhere else. We need to play harder and focus. we need to have consistency. We need to find some type of consistency and get some momentum heading into the conference tournament."

The Cougars play at Elon at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

3-Point Goals — Western Carolina 5-16 (Gore 0-1, Giles 2-7, Waginger 0-2, Robinson 3-6); C of C 6-15 (Scott 0-3, Wiggins 1-3, Goudelock 3-3, White 2-4, Monroe 0-1, Hammond 0-1). Steals — W. Carolina 10 (Giles 4); C of C 5 (Scott, Johnson 2). Blocks — W. Carolina 3 (Gordon, Giles, Wilson); C of C 5 (Scott 3). Turnovers — W. Carolina 8 (Wilson 3); C of C 21 (Scott, Johnson, White 4). Technicals — W. Carolina 1 (Waginger). A — 3,104.

Reach Charles Bennett at cbennett@postandcourier.com.

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