Dec. 19, 2011
Contact: Greg Murphy
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TAMPA, Fla. - Tim Kamczyc scored a game-high 14 points and Trey Harmon added 11, but Cleveland State fell for the first time on the road this year, 70-55, to South Florida on Monday night in the St. Times Pete Forum.
CSU, which was playing its first game since a 69-66 win over Akron on Dec. 10, fell to 10-2 overall and lost for the first time on the road (6-1). USF improved to 7-5 overall, including a perfect 7-0 mark at home.
Kamczyc hit 6-of-9 from the floor and 2-of-3 from three-point for his fourth double-digit scoring game in the last five contests.
Anton Grady added 10 points, making all five of his field goal attempts, and grabbed a career-high tying nine rebounds off the bench, while D'Aundray Brown scored nine points with seven rebounds and two steals, moving into ninth place on the all-time steals list at CSU (179).
Charlie Lee handed out a career-high four assists.
"You have to give South Florida a lot of credit," head coach Gary Waters said. "Their length forced us into a lot of bad shots and made us take a lot of three's tonight and we just didn't hit enough of them to stay in the game. By shooting so many three's, we were not able to get to the free throw line all night. We didn't play with the same level of intensity and enthusiasm we normally play with and we'll move forward and learn from this experience."
The Vikings opened the game by hitting eight of their first 15 shots to take a 19-13 lead with 10:38 left in the half on a steal and breakaway layup by Brown. However, CSU would hit just one field goal the rest of the half, a dunk by Grady off a no-look pass by Kamczyc and would trail 25-21 at the intermission.
The Vikings opened the second half strong, using a Harmon jumper, a three-pointer by Jeremy Montgomery and a free throw by Aaron Pogue to take a 27-25 lead with 17:40 left. But USF answered with eight straight points to take a 33-27 lead with 16:37 left.
A three-pointer by Harmon brought the Vikings back within three at 33-30, but two straight buckets by the Bulls pushed the lead back to eight points (38-30) with 14:38 left.
Kamczyc answered on the other end with a three-pointer to bring CSU within five (38-33) with 14:03 to play, but a 14-5 spurt by USF over the next five minutes allowed the Bulls to take a 52-40 lead with 9:29 on the clock.
The lead would stay double figures the rest of the game.
The Vikings shot .349 (22-63) from the field, while USF hit 23-of-48 (.479), including 13-of-20 (.650) in the second half en route to 45 points.
CSU out-rebounded the Bulls, 37-34, including 18 on the offensive end. USF held a big advantage at the free throw line, making 19-of-22, compared to just 4-of-6 for the Vikings. The Bulls hit 15-of-16 free throws in the second half.
CSU returns to action on Thursday (Dec. 22) when the Vikings host Sam Houston State at 7:00 p.m. in the Wolstein Center.
