FORLI, Italy – The UNC Greensboro men’s basketball team got 27 points from Kyle Hines and Kevin Olesiak tallied another 17 and as the Spartans defeated KK Rovinj 107-85 in the second game of their Italian tour.
Ben Sywall also added nine rebounds for the Spartans. KK Rovinj was led by Davor Galic who had 24 points and Kreso Herceg who had six rebounds.
The Spartans opened the third quarter with a 9-2 run and put the defensive clamp on the Croatian club, jumping out to a 67-44 lead with six minutes remaining in the quarter. KK Rovinj was able to match up defensively put couldn’t quite find their offensive rhythm.
Midway through the quarter the Croatian squad managed to find a bit of momentum by scoring four consecutive baskets and forcing several UNCG miscues to cut the lead to 69-54. But the Spartans regrouped and went on a 7-4 run over the next two minutes to push their lead back to 20 points. UNCG again used its defense to maintain their comfortable lead and closed the third frame with an 81-65 lead.
The fourth quarter saw more of the same effort on the offensive and defensive end of the floor. UNCG opened with an 8-4 run before the Croatian professionals managed to find an offensive rhythm. However, they couldn’t over come the Spartans stifling defense as UNCG picked up its second win of their Italian tour.
UNCG got off to a little bit of a slow start to begin the game. The Croatians started the game on a 9-2 run in the first two minutes. The opposing starting five shot a combined 7-for-8 in the first three minutes of the game.
The Spartans made a quick substitution and were able to climb themselves out of the hole behind buckets from Amsterdam native Bart Tooms and junior Kyle Hines, who took it to the Croatians on the inside. UNCG took their first lead of the game with 2:18 left in the quarter after a 6-2 spurt sparked by the inside play of Hines and the sharp outside shooting of Ben Stywall.
The Spartans held a 23-19 lead at the 1:34 mark and closed out the first quarter with several huge defensive plays including a charge from Mikko Kovisto with just over one minute remaining. Croatia wouldn’t go away and closed to within 25-23 at the end of the quarter.
Croatia tied it to open the second quarter, but a quick foul and two buckets from Ricky Hickman put UNCG out in front, 32-25 with 8:48 left in the half. UNCG began to quickly show its offense presence and managed to score three consecutive buckets to extend its lead to 36-31 with just over seven minutes remaining.
The Croatians pulled to within one with a pair of buckets, 36-35, with seven minutes remaining in the half. UNCG, however, went on a 19-7 run the rest of the half to extend the lead to 55-42 at the break intermission and did not look back.
- UNCG -