Hoping to send seniors Tim Marshall, Phillip Anglade and Jordan Weethee off with a win for their final Saturday game at Cameron Hall, the VMI basketball team weathered a fast Citadel offense with their own attack for a 111-95 victory over the Bulldogs Saturday afternoon in Lexington.
The 111-point effort was the highest-scoring game since the Keydets (9-19, 4-13) defeated Western Carolina in two overtimes last February by a 113-111 score.
Despite the Bulldogs’ efforts to continually push the ball upcourt, the Keydets managed to stay ahead of the rush and built a 55-46 halftime lead. Although The Citadel (10-21, 3-15) came within five points at the midpoint of the second half, the Keydets consistently scored points in the clutch to secure their fourth conference win of the year and confidence heading into next week’s Southern Conference tournament.
VMI earned 22 assists throughout the game while only committing eight turnovers. On the other end, the Keydets forced 22 turnovers, resulting in a 19-5 points off turnovers advantage.
Coming off a record-setting 46-point performance Thursday night, VMI junior QJ Peterson again led VMI with 26 points by going 7-for-15 from the field and 11-for-12 at the charity stripe to secure VMI second-straight win. He also led the Keydets with 11 rebounds on the afternoon for his fourth double-double of the year.
Julian Eleby was a constant force for the Keydets as he played all but two minutes of the game and poured in 21 points on 7-for-12 shooting from the field for his second straight 20-point game. Austin Vereen and Weethee each scored three times from beyond the arcto keep the Bulldogs at bay while freshman Adrian Rich scored a season-high 14 points.
Anglade and Marshall contributed 12 and 10 points after being recognized with Weethee in senior day pregame ceremonies.
The Bulldogs were paced by Brian White’s 23 points on the afternoon.
VMI closes the 2015-16 regular season Monday night at home as the Keydets take on league-leading Chattanooga at 7 p.m. at Cameron Hall. The SoCon Tournament runs from March 4-7 in Asheville, North Carolina.
Press Conference: VMI coach Dan Earl
“I was proud of our guys. They played extremely hard. It’s nice to send the seniors out this way. The seniors have done a good job adjusting to a different style of play and I thought they competed extremely hard. The bench was involved and that’s what we need to do, we needed 40 minutes of tremendous effort and I thought we did that today.”
“You always want to be playing your best basketball this time of year and I give our players a lot of credit. Our guys have stayed focused and energetic and we’re starting to play better team basketball and we moved the ball extremely hard today.”
“It was an interesting game that we were playing Citadel’s style – the ball was moving fast up and down the court but I thought we did a good job taking care of the ball and making good decisions.”
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