RADFORD, Va. – Shaquan Jules notched his first double-double in a Highlander uniform and propelled the No. 2 Radford men’s basketball team past No. 7 Hampton, 67-52, on Monday night and into the semifinal round of the 2020-21 Hercules Tires Big South Championship.
Jules finished with a career-high 15 points and 10 rebounds shooting 5-for-6 from the floor. He was one of three players scoring in double-figures as Lewis Djonkam tallied 12 points and Dravon Mangum added 11 points and eight rebounds.
The Highlanders finished with the game with a 49.0 field goal percentage and got off to a hot start shooting 51.9 percent in the first half. Radford held the Pirates to a 35.7 percent in the first half and just 33.3 percent for the game.
The strong defensive play in the first half ensured the Highlanders lead wire-to-wire, that included an early 11-2 run led by the big men – Djonkam, Jules and Chyree Walker. Hampton cut the deficit to two points on three different occasions in the first half with the latest coming at 1:37 in the first half. However, a Bryan Hart layup and a Jules dunk pushed the lead to six at the half.
Radford maintained a double-digit lead from the 9:40 point in the second half to the end of the game. The lead was built thanks to tenacious defense that held Hampton without a field goal for nearly eight minutes from 17:11 to 9:27.
The lead grew to as many as 21 with just over five minutes remaining thanks to hot shooting by Radford that included three straight 3-pointers – two by Mangum and one by Xavier Lipscomb. Lipscomb tallied nine points in his postseason debut.
The Highlanders shot 40.0 percent (4-for-10) from long range in the second half and held the Pirates to just 12.5 percent (1-for-8) from long range in the second half.
Radford held the Pirates to just a 16.7 3-point percentage in the game – the lowest an opponent has shot all season long against the Highlanders. The second-lowest 3-point percentage was also claimed by Hampton at 22.7 percent on Jan. 5.