GREENWOOD – The Lander Bearcats suffered through a cold-shooting afternoon as they lost a non-conference game to Carson-Newman 74-61 Saturday afternoon at Horne Arena.
Lander fell to 2-1 on the season. The Eagles improved to 3-0.
Terry Leonard Jr. led the Bearcats with 18 points while
Jacob Daniels added 11 points.
Dylan Canoville paced Lander with eight rebounds while Daniels led the way with four assists.
Jack Browder paced Carson-Newman with 30 points, making 10 of 21 shots from the floor including five of eight from behind the 3-point line.
The Bearcats made only five of 25 shots from behind the 3-point arc (20 percent). Lander hit 25 of 70 overall shots from the floor (36 percent) to 27 for 59 for Carson-Newman (46 percent).
"This was not a good performance," Bearcats head coach
Omar Wattad said. "Credit to Carson-Newman. I knew they were good. They are really, really good. We were just impatient and a little bit selfish on offense and extremely undisciplined on defense."
Leonard had the hot hand early, making two 3-pointers and adding a pair of tear drop shots inside for 10 points. Daniels added six points while Canoville scored twice inside as Lander led 20-17 with 9:45 left in the first half.
Carson-Newman scored 10 unanswered points for a 27-20 lead and added a 7-0 run later in the half to lead 43-30 at the break.
Navaughn Maise made a 3-pointer and
Bobby Crawford Jr. dunked off an alley-oop pass from Leonard to keep the Bearcats within striking distance.
Daniels made a 3-pointer from the top of the key to pull the Blue and Gold within 45-35 with 18:35 to go.
But the home team went almost four minutes without another point and fell behind 50-35. Daniels delivered a bounce pass on the pick and roll to
Jake Tringone for a layup to end LU's scoring drought.
But the Bearcats continued their cold shooting, making only six of their first 22 shots from the floor in the second half including one for eight from behind the arc as they trailed 64-45 inside the eight-minute mark.
Lander finally began stringing together some baskets as Leonard converted a three-point play, and Crawford, Daniels, and
Antewan Webber Jr. scored as the deficit was 68-54 with 5:23 left.
Leonard's 3-pointer from the top of the key cut the Bearcat deficit to 70-57 with 3:05 to go. But that would be as close as the score would get.
