Unbeaten Gold Rush win 76-66 at William Carey
December 18, 2010

Box score

     HATTIESBURG, Miss. — Anthony Simmons scored a career-best 24 points Saturday, and Chris Iles had a season-high 16 points and a career-high 11 assists to lead unbeaten Xavier University of Louisiana to a 76-66 men's basketball victory against William Carey.
     The Gold Rush, ranked ninth in NAIA Division I, are 11-0 for the first time since 1983-84 and the second time since World War II. Xavier snapped the 12-game home win streak of the Crusaders (8-4), who received votes in this week's NAIA poll.
     Jeremy Lee added 10 points, and Devin Andrew had nine points and a season-high nine rebounds for Xavier, which trailed 31-29 at halftime but took the lead for good at 38-36 on Michael Harvey's 3-pointer — his only points of the game — with 15:54 remaining.
     Nearly eight minutes later, Iles made a basket to cap a 12-3 run and give Xavier its biggest lead, 59-44. Simmons' basket at 6:20 made it 61-46.
     William Carey twice cut Xavier's margin to five points in the final 75 seconds, but the Gold Rush clinched the victory by scoring on its final four possessions.
     Jamal Doss scored a career-best 27 points, 19 in the first half, and grabbed 10 rebounds for William Carey. Verice Cloyd scored 13 points, and Drew Meyerchick had 12, all in the second half.
     Xavier, playing for the first time in 12 days, outshot the Crusaders 57.7 to 43.3 percent from the floor. It was the fifth time in nine games that the Gold Rush shot 56 percent or better. Xavier shot 65.4 percent in the second half.
     "This was a team win where everybody did something to help us," Xavier Coach Dannton Jackson said. "We had some lapses but we played pretty well after the layoff. We played well enough to win on the road against a good William Carey team."
     Iles produced Xavier's first point-assist double-double since Shaun Dumas had 10 points and 10 assists at home against Loyola on Feb. 28, 2008.
     "Chris Iles was big for us," Jackson said. "William Carey tried to run and jump out at him defensively, but Chris did a good job finding open teammates and making plays that led to baskets."
     Xavier denied William Carey a sixth victory this season against a ranked NAIA opponent. The Gold Rush and Crusaders will meet again Jan. 10 at The Barn.
     The final Gold Rush game before Christmas will start at 7 p.m. Monday against Southern University at the F.G. Clark Activity Center in Baton Rouge, La.