Benedict Men's Team Continues Home Court Dominance, Defeats Fort Valley
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The Benedict Tigers hit the floor at HRC Arena where they are virtually invincible, having not lost a game there since 2020 and Saturday was no different as they got the 80-75 win over Fort Valley to improve to 15-5 on the season and 11-2 in the SIAC.
Benedict Men Defeat Fort Valley
Fans Made a Difference
Head coach Artis Maddox said the home crowd has made all the difference for his team.
“It's just the fan base [really helps us out]. It's our crowd just being home,” he said. “Guys sleeping in their own beds, waking up in them in the morning. Not staying in a hotel and having to travel on the bus to the gym. We're home, we're comfortable. The band was there. We have the crowd behind our back, our gym, our baskets, so we're there comfortable with it.”
It was a tight ball game throughout with both teams trading baskets throughout the fourth quarter.
Tigers Made the Adjustments
The Tigers had a bit of breathing room with 1:50 after a putback by Malachi McCoy to give Benedict a 74-69 lead.
Fort Valley would answer, cutting Benedict’s lead to just three with 29.7 seconds left in the game. They would not get a shot off as Benedict forced a turnover and hit two free throws to seal the deal.
Maddox said his team was able to make some defensive adjustments after falling to the Wildcats 61-58 just a week ago.
Lessons Learned for the Tigers Win
“We learned our lesson from the first game. We went zone against them when it was a tie game,” he said. “We went zone and then this time we went man and switched everything and stuck to our principles. Hard-nosed defense, connect our man, and we talked, and that's what we did. We switched everything got a stop.”
Timothy Bing was the leading scorer for the Tigers with 22 points and 3 steals, followed by Tajh Green with 18 and McCoy with 17.
KJ Doucet led the way for the Wildcats with 22 points with Kenton Eskridge chipping in 17.
The Tigers are back in action Monday when Clark Atlanta comes to Columbia for the 7:30 PM ET contest.
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