VMI Keydets sent the Western Carolina Catamounts home on an early first round knock out in the 2019 Southern Conference tournament at the US Cellular Center on Friday, March 8.
Catamounts guard Kameron Gibson nailing the three on Friday’s game. Photo by Chris Lang
The first half. started off with 18 different lead changes between the Keydets and the Catamounts. Shot for shot both the Keydets and the Catamounts couldn’t miss and it seemed like an endless battle in the first half. The SoCon leading scorer, Sophomore Guard, Bubba Parham, put up 15 points in the first half off of 4 of 9 shooting for the half and hit a late three before the half to give the Keydets a two point lead going into the half. Catamount’s Kameron Gibson, lead all cats scoring at the half with 10 points but was far from done at that point.
“Felt we started off great, shots were dropping and we kept the game highly contested in the first half,” said Senior Small forward, Marc Gosselin.
Close game in the first half was quickly forgotten in the second as the Keydets went on a 13-0 run to start off the half. No matter how hard the Catamounts fought back to get back in the game nothing seemed to be enough. The SoCon leading scorer, Bubba Parham, dropped 26 points in the second half which helped the Keydets cruise to a 13 point victory over the Catamounts with an ending score of 96-83.
Keydets star of the game Bubba Parham driving on catamounts Matt Halvorsen on Fridays nights game.
“To me it was a reflection on how the season went, we always play teams tight and like tonight we should have won most games but end up blowing it in the second half,” said Junior forward, Carlos Dotson.
Leading scorer for the Keydets was no shocker. Keydets point guard has been leading the SoCon in scoring all season and he kept that streak alive by putting up 41 points against the Catamounts on 9-16 shooting. He was on fire from the free throw, where he got most of his points shooting 17-18 on free throws.
“We went into this game to stop him from shooting but the problem with Bubba is that when he catches fire the basket looks 5 feet wide to him,” said Cats Head Coach, Prosser.
Power Forward, Carlos Dotson never backed down and kept fighting in the game and led the Catamounts in scoring and rebounds. Dotson had himself a double double to close the season, shooting 9-16 from the floor with 27 points and grabbing 13 rebounds for the game.
Carlos Dotson hitting the highly contested shot drawling a foul and the and one. Photo taken by Chris Lang
Not at all how the Catamounts wanted to end their 2018-19 season. First year head Coach Mark Prosser said that he was hopeful for the future and that his team has a lot of promise to do great thing this upcoming year. The future is bright especially with Dotson and Freshman point guard, Kameron Gibson. Dotson made the third all conference team for the Southern Conference also lead the Catamounts in scoring per game and rebounds with 13.4 points per game and 9.4 rebounds per game . Dotson had a great year being ranked in the top 40 nationally in rebounds per game(34th), offensive rebounds(37th), field goal percentage(26th), double-doubles(t-29th). Gibson had a great start to his Catamount career being named to the SoCon All-freshman team this year.
“Not the way we wanted the season to end but I am proud of my guys this year working their tails off everyday putting in the work to learn a new system and execute like they did was phenomenal,” said head coach Prosser
Catamounts will have most of their players returning and will be expected to take it all next year.
