BUIES CREEK, N.C. – Junior Chris Clemons scored 32 points to lead the Campbell Camels past Miami’s RedHawks in College Basketball Invitational action Wednesday night at the Pope Convocation Center.
Clemons has been a prolific scorer and came into Wednesday averaging 24.5 ppg. Not only did he eclipse 30 points for the fifth time this season (including 39 at Penn State), he also became the Camels all-time leading scorer late in the first half.
While Clemons was lighting it up for the hosting Camels, Nike Sibande was doing much the same for Miami. The freshman led MU (16-18) with a career-high 29 points.
Logan McLane, a North Carolina native, finished his career making 8 of 11 shots from the field on the way to 19 points. Isaiah Coleman-Lands, meanwhile, got a start at point guard due to illness which limited All-MAC defensive team member Darrian Ringo.
Defense, in fact, seemed to be at a premium for both teams.
Miami closed out the night hitting 55 percent of its shots overall. Campbell succeeded on 62.3 percent.
While both teams had 33 field goals, the Camels totaled three more 3-point goals (16-13) while hitting 53.3 percent of their triple tries.
The hosts also nearly doubled up MU at the line, hitting 15 of 16 charity tosses to Miami’s 8 of 9.
Campbell (17-5) led for most of the first half and was up 39-33 before Miami closed the period on a 14-5 run. Sibande provided eight of the RedHawks pints, hitting a triple with two seconds left to five MU a 47-44 lead at the break.
They bumped theire advantage to seven points (53-46) before the Camels went on a critical 11-0 run. Five of the points came from Marcus Burk, who finished with 16,
His basket at 13:27 left Campbell in front 57-53 and CU built its advantage to 12 points (72-60) by the 11:39 mark.
Miami chipped away and twice closed within two points. The last time was on a McLane bucket to make it 78-76 with 6:44 remaining.
Campbell answered the RedHawks challenge thanks – in large part - to Damontez Oliver. Averaging 4.3 ppg., he had a big second half on the way to finishing with 19 points. Not only was he 6 of 8 from the field over 40 minutes, he knocked down 5 of 7 triples.
Two of the long distance scores came during a 9-0 burst that Clemons completed with his own trey. That put Campbell ahead 91-78 with 2:37 to go, and the Miami never got closer than eight points the rest of the way.