Grant Gives Asheville 2-0 Start

Grant, who had 15 points in Asheville’s opening win, battled Roanoke’s twin 7-footers with an 18-point, 11-rebound night. Hamilton had the Dazzle’s first double-double in history (17 points, 12 rebounds), but got little help other than from slashing forward Marshall Phillips.

Phillips scored 18 Roanoke points to match Grant for game high, but the Altitude’s defense hounded Roanoke shooting guard Artie Griffin into a 1-for-8 performance. Asheville Coach Joey Meyer also got much more from his bench than did Dazzle coach Kent Davison. The Altitude had 30 points and 23 rebounds from reserves, compared to Roanoke’s 15 points and 10 rebounds.

“Our first two games we haven’t been able to make a shot, but I drafted an athletic team and said we were going to win by playing defense, and rebounding and running the floor,” Meyer said. “We’re not the prettiest team in the league, but we scrap and play hard. I think we’ll get better as it goes.”

Asheville (2-0) visits North Charleston on Friday night, while Roanoke (1-1), in its third straight home date before a five-game road swing, entertains Fayetteville.

“Two things really hurt us,” Davison said. “The first was turnovers. We had 16, and that’s not bad, but Asheville got 22 points off them. You can’t allow that. The biggest thing, though, was we didn’t finish. We just didn’t finish anything. We had open looks all night, and we couldn’t make a shot, even the easy ones.

“I could tell from the opening tipoff we didn’t have the same intensity and fire we had Sunday night (in a 73-65 win over Mobile). The good thing, thought, was our last four minutes. We were down, and our guys did show they didn’t want to lose. Still, we made some decisions in those last three minutes, guys coming up from behind and knocking it away, guys taking ill-advised shots. At that point, it has to be at the hole.”

Asheville backup point guard Tyson Patterson, who played the last two summers for Davison in the USBL at Dodge City, hurt his former coach’s new team. The 5-foot-9 guard grabbed five rebounds to go with 10 points in 20 minutes.

The Altitude pulled away in the last five minutes of the third quarter to lead 54-46 at the end of the period. Roanoke rallied to within 67-64, and had a chance to tie in when JaRon Rush’s 3-point try from the top of the arc bounced off the iron with 8.2 seconds left.

“Roanoke is such a big physical team that I was worried about our team, but (the Dazzle) actually subbed down (size-wise) because of our quickness,” Meyer said. “We tried to go inside to take advantage when they went smaller, but Roanoke had a couple of steals, so I said we’d just play the game the way we normally play and not worry about the mismatches.”

Roanoke still outscored Asheville 40-22 in the paint, but after shooting 55.8 percent in its season-opening win over Mobile, the Dazzle connected on only 33.8 percent. Phillips had eight rebounds to go with his 18 points. Grant and Patterson were Asheville’s only double-figure scorers.

“We were just able to keep pushing the ball,” Grant said. “I think that wore them down in the second half. We’re still all getting used to each other. We have two wins and we haven’t played great, but like we say, we’re just starting to scratch the surface.”

“Turnovers killed us,’ Roanoke’s Griffin said. “You have to take care of the ball and execute sets better than we did. If you shoot like we did in our first game, you can get away with some turnovers. When you shoot like we did tonight (36.5 percent), you can’t give them more opportunities.

“They did a good job defensively, too. They stuck with us, and they played me tough (Griffin was 1-for-8). They had a couple of guys (point guards Tyson Patterson and Anthony Blakes) who have played on teams with me before, and they weren’t going to let me or any of us outside get too many open looks.”

GAME NOTES: Asheville backup guard Sergio McClain missed the game. McClain flew from Roanoke to Chicago on Tuesday morning, and then drove to Peoria for the birth of his first child – a son . . . Former Appalachian State teammates Patterson and Phillips had a big night, combining for 28 points and 13 rebounds. Phillips, who struggled in Roanoke’s opener, also had three assists and two steals . . . The teams combined for a 1-for-15 night behind the arc, the only basket by Asheville’s Johnny Hemsley.