Box Score

GEORGETOWN, Ky. – Shooting 50 percent from the field and 53.3 percent from behind the arc, No. 18 Georgetown (Ky.) was hard to beat on Thursday, turning back the top-ranked University of Pikeville men's basketball team 92-77 at Davis-Reid Alumni Gym.

It's the first loss of the season for UPIKE (14-2, 5-1 MSC) in Mid-South Conference play and just its second overall. Georgetown improves to 13-4 overall and 4-2 in league play.
For just the third time this season, the Bears were outrebounded (51-40), despite controlling the offensive glass 15-13.

Keala King led Pikeville with 17 points, followed by Bruce Reed, Josh Whitaker and Elisha Justice with 13 points each. Reed tallied his third double-double of the season with 10 boards.

Georgetown got a game-high 20 points from Monty Wilson, going 2-for-3 from the 3-point line and 8-of-9 from the free throw line. Dominique Hagans added 18 points and 11 rebounds, while Deondre McWhorter finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds.

With 53 total fouls called in the game, there were plenty of free throws and the Tigers made the most of them, finishing 26-of-37 from the stripe. Pikeville also took 37 free throws, but made 19.

Sometimes a half of basketball can come down to players getting a hot hand and that was the story for Georgetown's Middleton and Cottrill in the first 20 minutes. The duo knocked down three 3-pointers each as the Tigers shot 54.5 percent (6-of-11) from behind the arc in the half.

Cottrill knocked one down first, followed by a layup from Hagans to help the Tigers to a 7-2 lead. Luckily the Bears had a player catch fire too as King made a perfect pass to Whitaker for a three to tie the game at 7-7. Whitaker was a perfect 3-for-3 from behind the arc in the first half.

When Deondre McWhorter finished a 3-point play with 12:32 on the clock, Georgetown led just 14-12, but another Cottrill three made it a seven-point Tiger lead six minutes later. The lead reached double figures a minute later on a three from Middleton and stayed that way until halftime.

Georgetown led by as many as 16 points with two minutes on the clock, but missed two easy shots that turned into a 5-0 UPIKE run to go into the break down 11 at 41-30.

When the second half got going, Pikeville looked like a completely different team. Spearheaded by the defense of Elisha Justice, the Bears were able to score the first seven points and make it a 41-37 game in less than three minutes.

As good as the comeback was, Georgetown kept having answers to UPIKE's runs. Following a pair of free throws, the Tigers were aided by back-to-back threes that gave them a 13-point lead at 59-46.

With King as the only Bear able to produce any offense, scoring five straight at one point, the Tigers attacked the rim towards a 71-53 lead at the eight-minute mark. Getting a rare stop, UPIKE rebounded a Cottrill miss and got two free throws from King to cut the deficit to 14 in the final five minutes.

Continuing to chip away at the lead, a lob to Reed made it an 82-70 game with 3:07 left, followed by Georgetown hitting just one free throw and Manigault cutting through the lane for a layup to get within 11.  

After coming up empty on a pair of trips to get within single digits, Whitaker finally knocked down a three from the corner to get within eight. McWhorter slammed down a lob on the next possession to answer and Justice's three on the other end went long as the Tigers finished the win off at the stripe.

UPIKE is back in action at 4 p.m. ET on Saturday at Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Ky.