Brown’s 20 Not Enough in High Point Women’s Basketball Loss to Davidson

Site: High Point, N.C. (Millis Center)
Score: Davidson 73, High Point 63
Records: DC: 6-3, HPU: 2-5
Next HPU Event: Saturday, Dec. 15 — at Butler (Indianapolis, Ind.) 2 p.m.

HIGH POINT, N.C. – The High Point University women’s basketball team fell to Davidson College 73-63 at the Millis Center on Monday night (Dec. 2) in HPU’s final home game of the 2019 calendar year. Senior Camryn Brown led the Panthers with 20 points, the second time she’s reached the 20-point mark this season, and added five assists while playing all but 23 seconds in the contest due to fouling out.

High Point took an early six-point lead in the game, which would prove to be HPU’s largest lead of the contest. Senior Miya Bull hit a pair of triples, sandwiched around a three from freshman Amaria McNear to give the Panthers a 13-7 lead less than five minutes into the game. Davidson answered with a 12-3 run to take the lead at 19-16, which it only briefly lost on the next possession before regaining it 21-19 to end the half. The Panthers shot their best from behind the arc in the opening quarter, hitting five of their eight attempts from deep, over half of the total triple number in the game.

The Wildcats extended their lead with an 11-2 run for the first four minutes of the second half. HPU had its worst shooting quarter of the game in the second, going 4-13 from the floor and 0-5 from deep while Davidson shot 50% from both areas in the quarter. High Point was held to just eight points in the quarter as the Wildcats took a 38-27 lead into halftime.

Davidson pushed the lead to 20 to open the second half, going on a 9-0 run to start the third, part of a 5:19 scoring drought from the end of the first half into the second for High Point. Brown took over in the second half, scoring 17 of her 20 points after the break, going 7-18 from the floor with two triples and four free throws.

HPU continued to struggle shooting as a team in the third, going 5-16 from the floor, with Brown accounting for four of those makes and the team’s only three in a 1-6 effort. A scary scene for the Panthers occurred with 2:28 left in the third when Bull went down hard going up for a rebound and stayed down, clutching her leg. She was helped off the court by the trainer and her teammates and did not return to the game, finishing with a team-high eight rebounds.

The Wildcats led by as many as 25 with 3:10 showing on the clock before HPU went on an 11-2 run of its own to cut the deficit to 16 before the fourth quarter. McNear and Brown were the driving forces behind the High Point run, combining for 10 of the team’s 11 points on the run, capped off by a McNear buzzer-beating layup as time expired in the quarter.

High Point fought back in the fourth, shooting 43% to get the deficit back down to single digits with less than a minute remaining. Davidson led by 17 before a 10-2 run by the Panthers cut the lead to nine, with senior Olivia VanSlooten connecting on a triple, her first of the year, to make it 70-61. The Wildcats hit three free throws down the stretch and HPU mustered a layup from Courtney Meadows in the final 10 seconds to fall to Davidson 73-63, giving the visitors six straight victories over the Purple and White.

The Panthers are off for almost two weeks, not returning to action again until traveling to Indianapolis, Ind. to face Butler on Dec. 15 at 2 p.m. That is the start of a four-game road span for HPU, taking High Point into the new year. The Purple and White will return to the Millis Center on Jan. 4, 2020 to host USC Upstate for a 7 p.m. contest.