Charlotte basketball racks up another home win. How the 49ers beat Wichita State
Whether it’s putting a defender on a poster or getting posterized himself, Igor Milicic Jr. doesn’t flinch.
Nor do his Charlotte 49er teammates.
That’s the difference between average and good teams, and the 49ers have definitely become the latter following their 11th victory in the past 12 games.
Over the past four games — a combined 160 minutes — Charlotte has trailed for a total of 29 seconds. Sunday afternoon’s 72-61 victory over Wichita State marked the 49ers’ 10th straight victory at Halton Arena, keeping the 49ers (17-8, 11-2 AAC) in the race for the American Athletic Conference regular season championship as they currently sit one game behind South Florida (19-5, 12-1 AAC).
And while Charlotte added another wire-to-wire victory notch to their belt, one play from Sunday’s win stood out — Milicic’s willingness to make a play on the ball for his team, even with a high likelihood of ending up on an opponent’s highlight reel.
With 3:38 to play the Shockers were making a late-game push, trimming the 49ers’ lead to as little as seven points. Wichita State’s Quincy Ballard, a 6-foot-11 high-flying forward, was the roll-man in the Shockers’ two-man pick-and-roll game, elevating for what looked to be a sure alley-oop slam in front of the visitors bench to cut Charlotte’s lead to two possessions. But Milicic stepped in front of Ballard and and deflected the potential dunk, fouling Ballard and sending him to the free-throw line.
But why would a common foul carry so much weight? Ballard went 1 for 2 at the charity stripe and the Shockers finished the game 7 of 16 from the free throw line — leaving 9 points off the board in what was a single-digit game most of the second half.
The foul negated a potential momentum swing and allowed the 49ers to reset and fend off the Shockers, securing an 11-point win in front of 4,215 Charlotte fans.
For head coach Aaron Fearne and Milicic, the thought of getting dunked on is irrelevant. That’s just how you play basketball.
“Us international guys don’t care about (getting dunked on),” Fearne said, followed by a handshake with Milicic. “You might get dunked on, oh well. The mentality (in the United States) a little bit is, ‘I’m going to get out of the way, because I don’t want to get dunked on, talked about, and put on TV.’ Obviously, it was a big play in the game.”
“I would rather get dunked on than be scared, get out of the way, and let them get two points,” Milicic said. “This season, especially, I’ve blocked a lot of dunks. I feel like my chances are pretty good up there, and I won’t step back from anything like that anytime soon.”
That’s the mentality that is fueling this Charlotte group. Fearne has continued to reiterate it all season, and Sunday was yet another example, “great things can happen when no one takes the credit.”
And for the 49ers, a great conference-play run trending toward a double-bye in their first appearance in the AAC Tournament, which will be in Fort Worth, Texas from March 13-17.
The march to madness
With tournament time just weeks away, the Charlotte 49ers are positioning themselves for a run at their first AAC championship. For Fearne’s group, that means blocking out the noise, focusing on their next opponent and continuing to improve..
“I don’t want to get ahead. Everyone outside of our huddle can talk about that type of stuff, but we’re not,” Fearne said about the possibility of the 49ers breaking their 19-year NCAA Tournament drought. “It’s too unknowing and too distracting. I don’t want them to think that way. We’ve got these short weeks to prepare for these games, and I think if we can stay in the moment that way, then we can slowly keep growing on a number of things that we’ve got to keep getting better at and sharpening up the things we do really well.
“We’re all positioning for something,” Fearne said. “Wanting to finish the year strong and max out the potential of this team — whatever that may be.”
Charlotte’s remaining regular season schedule:
at Memphis (2/21)
at Tulsa (2/24)
South Florida (3-2)
Rice (3/6)
at ECU (3/9)
