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CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Taking nine players to a West Virginia Conference men's basketball road game is beneficial in one way: the post-game meal is cheaper.
Outmanned Bluefield State saw the University of Charleston go on a 20-7 run late in the first half to pull away and earn a 111-61 victory over the last-place Big Blues (1-15, 0-12) at Eddie King Gym on Monday night.
The Big Blues had just nine players dress, while the fourth-place Golden Eagles (14-5, 9-4) had 12 - which didn't include starter Marco Richardson and key reserve Noah Fischer. Richardson is nursing a hamstring injury that's not considered serious, and Fischer had his appendix removed and will miss six games.
Among the starters who were on the floor for UC, senior guard and South Alabama transfer P.J. Reyes had 23 points, which included five alley-oops in the first half, one in which he dunked and the other four he laid in.
"We wanted to really concentrate, as a group, handling this maturely," UC Coach Mark Downey said. "At halftime we said we wanted to guard every possession and get better no matter who's on the floor. Handle this, don't start settling for bad shots."
For Bluefield State's part, the Big Blues had four of their starters with two fouls each in the first half and 13 team fouls - created partly by UC attacking the basket with dribble penetration.
Interestingly, interim Coach Jamaal Jackson's team played man-to-man defense against the deeper Golden Eagles, and as a result, saw two players foul out and had eight more fouls than UC.
Reyes exploited the opportunities, making his only 3-point attempt and connecting on nine of his 11 field goal tries.
While his offensive decision-making and shot selection has been in question, he and Downey said it's definitely coming around.
"I told Keith Tyler that I got it back today," Reyes said. "Coach told me not to settle today, to go to the basket. I shot one 3 today. Everything else, I went to the basket."
"That's what he does," Downey said. "We've been preaching that for a month. Everybody on this team has to do what they do to help us win, and that's what he does."
Charleston had all but one player score, including former Buffalo and Winfield standout Austin Lewis and former Scott standout Shawn Ballard - who had five points apiece.
Eladio Espinosa had 10 rebounds to go with his 17 points and Hayden Annett - playing more in the absence of Fischer - had 14 points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals. Evan Faulkner had 10 points in UC's largest scoring output of the season and largest margin of victory. They won at Bluefield 106-68 on Nov. 16.
Former Marshall forward Xavier Humphrey had 15 points, nine rebounds, three assists and shared team-highs in blocked shots with Montavious Marc - with three.
Charleston, a 67.3-percent foul-shooting team entering the game, was 32-of-37 (86.5). Also, the WVC's second-leading rebounding team finished with 45 - four above its average.
Bluefield State was led by Johnny Uhegwu with 15 points and former Wyoming East standout Alex Webb with 12. Vincent Rogers had 12 before fouling out with 5:57 remaining.
University of Charleston will embark on a four-game set of WVC games within seven days beginning on Thursday with a visit to Shepherd, a game which Richardson is expect to play. The Golden Eagles then will visit Pitt Johnstown, host Ohio Valley and visit Davis & Elkins.
Downey is pretty sure he won't see a lot of man defenses against coming foes and hopes his team is ready to attack zones - a sore spot for the UC offense.
"We get the ball inside the zone and we panic a little bit," Downey said. "We need to be patient and if they collapse find the open guy. It's the same five guys guarding you in man as it is in zone. It's a sagging man defense, that's all.
"We've been working on it like crazy. We haven't been working on our man stuff in practice much in two or three weeks. We've been going 75-25, zone-man offensively ... maybe 80-20."
