Boseman Buries Jumper to Beat Asheville

The win was the fourth in a row for the Riverdragons, who now have beaten the Altitude on consecutive nights. On Monday, Columbus rolled past Asheville 88-67.

With Tuesday's win, Columbus improved to 6-2 on the season, while the Altitude fell to 3-6.

The Riverdragons, winners of five of their last six games, were led by Gabe Muoneke. The 6-7 forward scored 19 points on 8-of-14 shooting and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.

"Gabe played better than he did last night," said Riverdragons head coach Jeff Malone. "He has calmed down a little from earlier in the season and he showed tonight the type of player he can be."

Asheville led by 12 points with 6:32 remaining in the third quarter, following four straight baskets by Altitude guard Jason Hart. The lead would be chiseled down to six points as the quarter ended.

"We did not execute in the fourth quarter," said Altitude head coach Joey Meyer. "They seemed to take the momentum away from us and slowly took advantage of our offensive slow down."

With the score at 63-57 to open the fourth period, Columbus went on a 6-0 run to tie the score at 65-65. The lead would then seesaw back and forth, setting the stage for the Boseman game-winning basket.

The Altitude had one last possession to either tie or win the game, but Asheville center Paul Grant was unable to make a layup with 10 seconds remaining.

In addition to Muoneke, Columbus also received contributions from Tremaine Fowlkes (17 points) and Nate Johnson (10 points). Boseman and Chris Garner each chipped in with nine points.

Asheville was led in scoring by Lee Scruggs (15 points), Grant (14 points), Jimmy King (11 points) and Chris Carrawell (10 points).

Postgame quotes

Columbus coach Jeff Malone
On the play of Gabe Muoneke: "Gabe played better than he did last night. He has calmed down a little from earlier in this season and he showed tonight, the type of player he can be."

On his team's performance: "I liked the way we played tonight. I know how good we can be as a team and I now have to sell that to them (the players) but I think they are starting to realize it now."

On the back-to-back wins: "It was very hard to come in here and win. When you blow a team out, like we did Monday night, sometimes you tend to get relaxed, but I have to give our guys credit, they played very hard tonight."

"When you play teams back to back, especially after a win, they (the oppoment) have a lot of pride. Teams in this league are not just going to let you run over them."

"We won at home and we got this one on road. They (the Altitude) are going to be a team that we are going to have to fight with all year."

On the current winning streak: "We've played well and our guys have stepped up. We are rebounding the basketball better and we have cut down on our turnovers."

Asheville coach Joey Meyer
On his team's performance: "I thought we played well enough to win tonight. We scored enough points and our perimeter players really stepped up after a poor performance last night (Monday)."

"We have to do a better job of defending down the stretch if we are going to close teams out."

On the Columbus comeback from 12 points down: "We did not execute in the fourth quarter and they seemed to take the momentum away from us."

On the game-winning shot by Stais Boseman: "This is the second time this week, that a player has made a tough shot to beat us. We had our chances to take control of this game, but the ball did not bounce our way."