Altitude Elevate Over Dazzle

The teams, which meet again Friday night at the Asheville Civic Center, went in opposite directions in opposite halves. The Dazzle (9-13) skidded to defeat in a 23-point second half, a 20-minute span coach Kent Davison’s team began by missing 23 of its first 29 shots.

It was a gratifying win for the Altitude (13-9), considering coach Joey Meyer only had eight players dressed, with starting center Paul Grant (family death) and backup guard Sergio McClain (family illness) not on the trip to the Star City.

“I don’t understand it,” Davison said, after his team posted its fourth nine-point quarter of the season to allow Asheville back into the game. “For 20 minutes we look great, and then it looks like our evil twin shows up. And it’s happened time and again. It’s repetitious is what I can say. It appears we may be coming out of it, but then this happens.

“It’s like a broken record, and it’s so danged frustrating. We get 52 points in the first half, and then 23 in second half. How do we do that? It’s the same players. It’s mental toughness. It has to be. I can’t believe they can get that tired.”

Asheville received big efforts from forward Chris Carrawell, who turned a 10-for-13 shooting night into 23 points. Jermaine Tate posted a double-double (16 points, 10 rebounds), and 6-foot-11 Lee Scruggs -- making his first start of the season in replacing Grant -- had an Asheville season-high 15 rebounds.

“At times you can get discouraged,” Meyer said. “They were draining shots in the first half (19-for-35, .543). I kept saying that they’re not going to keep shooting that well. We needed to hang around and keep in close until they started missing.

“We were fortunate they missed some shots, but we hung in there. Our numbers were a little depleted, and I was pleased we hung in like we did. Chris Carrawell really came up big for us, not only shooting the ball, but passing.”

“They (the Dazzle) didn’t think they were getting much out of their big guys, so they went smaller. When Scruggs wasn’t giving much, I figured I’d try Carrawell at the four. We were a little bit out of sync, but I thought we matched their quickness better like that.”

Roanoke was outrebounded 26-16 in the second half, and shot 7-for-33 (.212). The Dazzle matched its season-low in turnovers with 11, but for the 22nd straight game, couldn’t manage to get the 70 field-goal attempts Davison wants in a game. The Dazzle got only four rebounds from the center position.

“It’s a crying shame,” Davison said of his team’s inability to take advantage of Asheville’s personnel shortage. “We had everything there to take advantage, and then we don’t. We speeded them up ... We had it the way we wanted it to go, and then the first few possessions of the second half, I knew it was coming. I could see it -- bad shots, a shot-clock violation, turnovers. We just haven’t figured out it’s a 40-minute game.”

Forward Jeff Boese led the Dazzle with his first NBDL double-double – 15 points and 10 rebounds. Artie Griffin had Roanoke’s scoring high, with 20 points.

“We just came out and played better defense after halftime. They were hot in the first half, and we weren’t getting our hands in their faces. In the second half we were helping each other out, rotating, and we started to knock down shots of our own. It was a tale of two halves.”