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Going into Sunday night’s semifinal matchup between the College of Charleston and Appalachian State, most observers were anticipating a heavyweight bout between Donald Sims and Andrew Goudelock, two of the premier guards in the Southern Conference.
Someone must have forgotten to tell Kellen Brand that Sims and Goudelock were supposed to be the stars of the show.
Brand turned in a brilliant performance, mastering the Cougar defense en route to a career-high 37 points on 14-19 shooting to push Appalachian to a 77-54 win over Charleston.
“I was just comfortable and playing with energy,” Brand said. “My teammates did a great job of just trying to get me the ball. I got kind of hot, and coach just kind of let me go.”
Despite Brand’s stellar statistics, his play on the offensive end of the court may not have been his biggest contribution to the game.
Brand was tasked with guarding Goudelock, and he was able to be an effective defender. Goudelock scored 19 points, but made only 6-21 shots from the field, including 3-10 from 3-point range.
“I take my hat off to him, because he is a great player,” Brand said of Goudelock. “He’s a tough assignment because you don’t know what he’s going to do. He had a great game last night [against Chattanooga], and I didn’t want that to happen tonight. So I just tried to get up in him and force him to make some tough shots.”
Brand, a senior, said the fact that he did not want his career to end without a championship was motivation for him.
“It’s just another opportunity to come out and play. That was my motivation, just another chance to come out here and step on the floor,” he said. “As a senior, you know coming into the game that it could very well be your last game. That’s enough motivation for me. We have to come out [in the championship] with that same thing in our minds.”
Appalachian’s inside game was just as important to the Mountaineers’ success against the Cougars as Brand’s play was.
The Apps dominated the boards, collecting 46 rebounds compared to Charleston’s 26. Principal big men Ike Butts and Josh Hunter combined for 22 points and 19 rebounds. The two helped ASU to a 40-16 advantage of points in the paint.
“I didn’t think we’d get 40,” ASU head coach Buzz Peterson said. “I was hoping for 28 to 34. When I see 40, I think we did what was asked of us.”
Butts and Hunter were able to hold C of C forward Jeremy Simmons to eight points and three rebounds. Simmons killed the Apps in the regular season, scoring 20 points and grabbing 10 boards – 8 of which were offensive.
“We had to outrebound them,” Butts said. “Down [in Charleston] Simmons really rebounded the ball on the offensive end very well. We knew that we had to come out here tonight and outrebound them in order to get extra shots for our team. I feel like we did a pretty good job of that tonight.”
The win put ASU in the SoCon championship game for the first time since 2000. They play Wofford, who has never played in the title game before.
“[Wofford has] really improved throughout the season,” Peterson said. “We’ve got our hands full.”
Story by: ROB JENKINS, Sports Editor
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