Ante Brzovic scored 17 points and No. 18 Charleston won its 18th game in a row by blasting William & Mary 82-54 on Monday in Charleston, S.C.
Dalton Bolon had 15 points, Reyne Smith posted 13 points and Ben Burnham came off the bench for 13 points for the Cougars (19-1, 7-0 Colonial Athletic Association).
Charleston made 16 shots from 3-point range, while the Tribe missed all of their 12 attempts from beyond the arc.
Ben Wight had 14 points for William & Mary (8-11, 3-3), which was unable to come anywhere close to duplicating its road upset from two days earlier at UNC Wilmington. Anders Nelson had 12 points and Noah Collier had 10, but the Tribe were hurt by 18 turnovers.
This marked Charleston’s fifth game, and by far the smoothest, since entering the AP Top 25 poll. The Cougars trailed in the second half of home games with Delaware and Elon, but there was no such stress associated with this one.
Charleston’s reserves outscored William & Mary’s bench 34-16.
The Cougars broke out to leads of 14-2 and 19-6, the latter mark barely more than four minutes into the game.
By the time it was 33-14, Charleston was 6-for-15 on 3s and William & Mary was 6-for-16 overall from the field. Burnham had consecutive 3s during that span.
The Cougars held a 42-24 halftime edge, buoyed by Brzovic’s 14 points. Charleston had seven 3-pointers and seven 2-point baskets by halftime. William & Mary missed all nine of its 3-point attempts in the first half.
It was a dominating first half for Charleston despite the team going the last 2:39 without a field goal.
The margin grew to 61-32 just nine minutes into the second half.
William & Mary didn’t force much action inside and went just 4-for-6 on foul shots.
–Field Level Media