It was a homecoming of sorts for Houston Christian forward Demarco Bethea.
Bethea, who played at Dillon High School, scored a team-high 14 points to lead four players in double figures as Houston Christian defeated The Citadel 72-65 before a crowd of 1,014 at McAlister Field House on Nov. 26.
Bethea, who began his career in junior college, was 7 of 7 from the floor for the Huskies (4-2) and dominated the paint.
The Citadel (2-5) got off to another slow start, trailing by as many as 14 points midway through the first half.
Slowly, the Bulldogs worked their back into the game, cutting the Huskies’ lead to a single basket at 35-32 by halftime.
The Huskies used a 10-2 run to start the second half to build another double-digit advantage on Bethea’s layup with 14:03 to play.
Again, the Bulldogs battled back and tied the game at 60 on Braxton Williams’ free throws with 5:42 to play in the game.
But that would be as close as the Bulldogs would get the rest of the way.
Williams led the Bulldogs with a season-high 20 points off 5 of 12 shooting from 3-point range. Christian Moore was the only other Bulldogs player in double digits with 17 points.
Key stats
• The Citadel forward Sola Adebisi missed his second straight game with a knee injury. The 6-8 Adebisi is averaging 9.6 points and a team-leading 6 rebounds a game. Abedisi is listed as day-to-day.
• The Bulldogs had their best night of the season at the free throw line, going 10 of 11.
• After committing four turnovers on their first six possessions, the Bulldogs did a better job of taking care of the ball, finishing with just nine turnovers.
Quotable
“We dug ourselves a hole in the opening minutes of the game. We didn’t show the energy or the effort that is expected in this basketball program — and that’s on me — and we’ll get that rectified. We’ll get that corrected because that’s not up to our standards. We were making some things up on the fly during the game to run offensively and defensively, but I was trying to find five guys that knew what it meant to wear this jersey.” — The Citadel coach Ed Conroy.
