The Falcons men’s basketball team started off strong in their road tilt against the Norfolk State Spartans. The Falcons found themselves with a 21-3 lead early and didn’t look back.
“Once we started to slow down and started to get stops on the defensive end, that was the difference in the game,” Falcons head coach Michael Huger said. “We were able to settle down, so the biggest thing was we didn’t panic totally, but once we settled down, we were able to get stops again and get back in transition.”
When the final buzzer sounded, the team left with a 92-77 win to extend their record to 7-2 on the year before MAC play begins.
“We did a really good job on the defensive end,” Huger said. “The guys were sharp and locked in on defense. Our rotations, our closeouts, our drives were all good. We did a good job on the dribble drive that they were trying to run, and our guys did an excellent job on the defensive end, so it was a lot of fun.”
The Falcons were lead offensively by sophomore guard Dylan Frye, who finished with a career high of 28 points.
“It was definitely impressive by Dylan,” Huger said. “All of our guys, Justin Turner had a great night for us as well. Demajeo Wiggins and Matt Fox came in and played great for us down the stretch. Hit some big free throws, hit some big shots to open up that lead, but I was most impressed with his defense. He was able to defend and do a great job on the defensive end, hopefully that’ll cover over into MAC play, but Dylan was very hot to start the game. He didn’t have a particularly good shoot around, so I didn’t know how he would play until he got out there. But, you know, he just had a really good game.”
Senior guard Matt Fox had a career high as well, as he put in 18 points. Both Fox and Frye did most their damage from behind the arc.
Junior forward Demajeo Wiggins put in 18 points as well to go along with seven boards, one block and one steal.
“We started to run our regular plays,” Huger said. “I told our guys ‘Don’t panic,’ we just stood and passed it around the perimeter, and once that happened, we started to run our zone plays. Our man to man plays and everything worked against it. That was the difference in this game for us.”
The Falcons will next take on the Evansville Purple Aces Tuesday night at the Stroh Center.