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58 ^thAnnual CIAA Basketball Tournament

Panthers Pound Their Way Into CIAA Semi-Finals

FEBRUARY 27, 2003, Raleigh, NC---Size does matter.

The outsized Rams of Winston-Salem State University could not contend with Virginia Union University’s size as the Panthers won going away, 81-59.

The Panthers (17-9) advanced to Friday’s 9 p.m. semi-final of the 2003 CIAA Tournament where they will face the winner of tonight’s St. Augustine’s College/Shaw University game.

The Panthers could have been artists with as much time as they spent in the paint. They scored
24 points on layups and dunks in the first half, while Wayne Wallace controlled the middle defensively for the Panthers with four first-half blocked shots. For the game, the Panthers out-rebounded the Rams by a 39-16 margin.

Wallace would finish the game with seven blocked shots in addition to his 15 points and nine rebounds. Point guard Luqman Jaaber paced the Panthers with 19 points and Duan Crockett had 15 points, 11 rebounds and four assists.

“We were conscious that we had to get inside position and we rebounded well tonight,” said Panthers’ head coach Dave Robbins. “ (Wayne)Wallace is Ben Wallace’s nephew and rebounding is in his blood,” he added.

The Panthers led 38-29 at the break, and if the Rams had thoughts of sinking back into a zone, Crockett sent a message with the Panthers’ first shot of the second half as he drained a long 3-pointer.
That shot started an 8-2 run that gave the Panthers a 46-31 lead with just over 14 minutes left in the game.

Robbins’ horses got their points, but the Rams were stung by the Panthers’ reserves. The Panthers got 26 points from their bench led by Chris Moore with 10 and Ralph Brown with seven.

The 3-point shot was what kept the Rams (15-14) close in the first half. Senior Jay Maynard hit 5-of-7 from behind the arc, scoring 15 points in the half.

In the second half, the Panthers clamped down on Maynard, limiting his scoring opportunities and he finished with 16 points before fouling out of the game.

“I think the game boiled down to two areas,” said Rams head coach Phillip Stitt. “You have to make shots, which we didn’t and you have to rebound.”

The Rams’ next highest scorers were Vincent Sessoms and Robert Lee, who finished with eight points apiece, while Jonathan McIntyre and Rashad McGee had four assists each.