Five players reached double figures and Detroit withstood James Madison’s rally from an 18-point deficit in the first half to record an 82-70 Sears BracketBusters win on Saturday afternoon at Calihan Hall.
UDM won its fifth game in a row and eighth in nine games to improve to 17-12. JMU fell to 11-18 overall and 3-3 all-time in BracketBusters play.
Guard Jason Calliste led Detroit with 19 points. Donavan Foster added 12. LaMarcus Lowe, Doug Anderson and Evan Bruinsma contributed 10 points apiece with Anderson adding seven rebounds.
The Titans got off to a blistering start, hitting 14 of their first 17 shots (82 percent) in building a 41-23 first-half lead. However, JMU fought back with a quick 10-0 run and held UDM scoreless for the first five minutes of the second half to tie the score at 47-47. After the hot start, Detroit was limited to seven of its next 24 (29 percent) to allow the Dukes back into it.
Junior guard A.J. Davis (Columbus, Ohio/Harmony Community) had a game-high 26 points for his 11th 20-point game of the season. Junior forward Andrey Semenov (St. Petersburg, Russia/Blue Ridge School) added 14 points. Junior center Gene Swindle (Miami, Fla./Gulliver Prep) had his best career game with 10 points, eight rebounds and 36 minutes played, all career bests. Junior guard Devon Moore (Columbus, Ohio/Northland) had a season-high 10 assists while defensively holding UDM leading scorer Ray McCallum (15.5 points per game) scoreless until the final three minutes.
After trailing by as much as 18 points to the hot-shooting Titans in the first half, JMU pulled within eight at the break and held the host scoreless for the first five and a half minutes of the second half. The Dukes tied the game at 47-47 on a three-point field goal by Semenov.
JMU took its first lead since 2-0 on a three-point play by junior guard Davis to make it 50-49 with 13 minutes remaining. That proved to be the last lead of the game, though the Dukes kept it close until the final minutes.
Six unanswered points put UDM ahead 55-50 only to see Madison answer back with another Semenov three knotting the score at 55-55 with 10 to go.
It was 64-61 when Doug Anderson skied for a pair of emphatic putback slams for the Titans to build the margin to seven points. Leading scorer Ray McCallum (15.5 points per game) had been held scoreless until recording seven straight points Detroit in the final three minutes as UDM pulled away for the 82-70 win.
Detroit shot 51 percent for the game, including 42 percent in the second half after 63 percent in the opening frame. The Titans hit 36 percent (8-for-22) from the arc and made 18 of their 21 attempts at the foul line (86 percent).
JMU shot 46 percent for the game and made 8-of-19 three-point attempts (42 percent). The Dukes were hurt by a 61-percent effort at the charity stripe, including 11-for-19 (58 percent) in the second half.
With the score at 22-18 at the 11-minute mark, the Titans used their hot shooting to reel off 19 of the next 24 points, including a 10-0 run to go up 41-23 with six minutes to go. That stretch included a run of four straight threes from Bruinsma and Calliste.
JMU finally forced a series of misses and turnovers to orchestrate a quick 10-0 run of its own in two minutes to cut the deficit back to single digits at 41-33. The Dukes held the Titans to four points in the final six minutes as the third tree by Davis and a layup by Swindle cut it to 45-38 UDM at the half.
Davis had 15 points in the half for the Dukes while Calliste had 13 for the Titans.
JMU heads into the final week of the regular season with a road contest Wednesday at Drexel at 7 p.m.
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