Charlotte snaps losing streak, gets first AAC win of season

CHARLOTTE ATHLETICS

Jaehshon Thomas and Nik Graves during the Charlotte 49ers' 69-61 win against South Florida Wednesday at Halton Arena. The win was Charlotte's first in the AAC of the season.

Charlotte men’s basketball’s losing streak is over.

The 49ers (8-12, 1-6 AAC) defeated South Florida, 69-61 inside Halton Arena to pick up their first conference win of the season. This win ended a seven game losing streak for the Niners and was a breath of fresh air for coach Aaron Fearne.

“Extremely proud of the guys, happy for the guys,” Fearne said. “I know it's not been a pleasant patch here for us but I will say this — the guys have worked really hard every single day going through it, having an understanding that you can get better while you're not having the results you want. The last couple of days at practice were great.”

It was a great game for the 49ers’ starting five as Nik Graves, Kylan Blackmon, Jaehshon Thomas, Robert Braswell IV and Giancarlo Rosado accounted for 66 of the team’s 69 points.

Rosado, who had a near triple-double with nine points, 11 rebounds and nine assists, recognized Charlotte has been going through a rough patch, but feels it’s a good place to turn things toward the right direction. Rosado’s 11 rebounds and nine assists were career highs.

“Like coach Fearne says, ‘It's hard to win,’” he said. We’ve been going through a tough patch as a team but one thing I can say is we stuck together.”

Fearne has been pleased with Rosado’s impact a over the season and it was evident in the 49ers’ first conference win.

“[It’s] probably the closest he's been to a triple-double in his college career,” Fearne said. “I would say that when he plays like that and can have numbers like this, we're going to be a difficult team to beat. If he made a couple free throws, he would have double-digit points and I'm probably sure I can find an assist somewhere from the game in there. [He] probably would have had a triple-double.”

When asked if it would irk him being so close to a triple double, Rosado laughed it off and gave credit to his teammates for hitting shots. His goal is to win no matter what his stats are.

“The triple-double is pending,” Rosado said. “But my teammates played hard tonight, they hit shots, we really played hard, we played desperate. We’ve got a lot more basketball to play, and we’ve got to be playing our best basketball at the right time, in March.”

Charlotte, which came into the game last in the conference in rebound differential at minus-4.3, outrebounded South Florida 42-29. It was something that Fearne knows will be a continued point of emphasis moving forward because the correlation between wins and rebounding is there.

“[Rebounding] is something that is something that will continue to have to be a concentration point for this team,” Fearne said. “Obviously, we will get challenged mightily these next couple games on the road keeping these teams off the glass, but we’ve got to go get on the glass too, but excellent effort.”

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