Jason Flagler scored 19 of his game-high 23 points in the second half as No. 8 South Carolina State rallied past No. 9 Bethune-Cookman for a 78-69 win in a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Tournament first-round game on Tuesday night at the RBC Center.
The Bulldogs (13-19) advance to a 7 p.m. quarterfinal game on Wednesday against top seed Morgan State. The Wildcats’ season ends at 11-21.
Flagler scored nine points in a decisive second-half run that gave SCSU the lead for good. After a three-point play by Bethune-Cookman’s Kevan Creppy tied the game at 56 with 6:27 left, the Bulldogs went on a 15-4 spurt over the next three and a half minutes to take a 71-60 lead. Flagler started the run with two free throws, and also added a put-back, a three-point play and a short jumper off the glass.
“We’ve been a slow-starting team all year long, but we picked it up in the second half,” SCSU coach Tim Carter said.
There were six lead-changes in the first half, but Bethune-Cookman used a 12-1 run to go into halftime with a 30-25 lead. The Wildcats held SCSU to just one Julius Carter free throw and no field goals over the final 5:38 in the half. B-CU forced 10 SCSU turnovers and held the Bulldogs to 37.5 percent shooting in the first half.
But the Bulldogs heated up in the second half, mixing in 3-pointers by Jessie Burton, Everett Spencer and Thomas Bookman with the inside game of Flagler and Carter. SCSU shot 60 percent (18-of-30) from the floor in the second half to end the game at 50 percent overall (27-of-54).
The Bulldogs sealed the win by making 7-of-8 from the free-throw line over the final two minutes.
John Holmes and Dewayne Pettus scored 17 points apiece for Bethune-Cookman, which played just seven players and was without injured third-leading scorer Jimmy Hudson (11.3 points per game). Dominique Whatley chipped in 16 points for the Wildcats.
”I thought the better team won tonight,” Bethune-Cookman coach Clifford Reed said. “They are bigger and exploited our (lack of) size inside. They shot 60 percent in the second half, and that was the game right there.”
Burton added 15 points and made four of SCSU’s nine 3-pointers. Carter contributed 13 points and a game-high nine rebounds, and Spencer scored 12 points.
”We have to play the game of our lives tomorrow (against Morgan State),” Carter said. “But this is what we wanted, to be in position to play the No. 1 team.”