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The UNA Lions men’s basketball team started their 2010-2011 season

with a 104-69 exhibition win over the Berry College Vikings Nov. 4

in Flowers Hall. 

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The Lions have a young team this year and have only three seniors,

one of which, Ricky Davison, is a new transfer from the University

Arkansas at Little Rock. 

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“I liked our young player’s performance,” said Head Coach Bobby

Champagne. “I thought Wes Long as a redshirt freshman came in and

played well. Other than Trent, Doug and Warrick those guys haven’t

played. I was happy with the way those new guys played. 

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I thought we played with a lot of confidence. It was good to play

against somebody else because we’ve been <span style=

“letter-spacing: -0.2px;”>beating each other up for the last 20

days.”

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Berry College stayed with UNA throughout the first half. The Lions

had only a one point lead after the first five minutes of the first

half, with a score of 12-11. The Vikings closed the gap to three

after being down several more at the nine minutes remaining mark,

but UNA extended their lead

to 47-37 at halftime.   

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“I was happy with our

effort,” said Champagne. “I was happy with the way we played

together, and that was all this game was about. It’s nice to score

like we did and win the game, but I really just wanted to be sure

that we played hard, played together and played smart. For the most

part we did. 

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We had a couple of bonehead plays but we played pretty good. It

always helps when you shoot the ball well. You look a whole lot

better than you really are.” 

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The Lions pulled away from the Vikings in the second half,

outscoring Berry College 57-32 in the final 20 minutes. The Lions’

35-point margin of victory was aided in part by the UNA shooters

going 15-27 from behind the arc. UNA shot 36-67 for a 53.7 field

goal percentage on the night. 

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Warrick Mastin, Beaumont Beasley, Ricky Davison, Long, Doug Hunter

and Nick Luttrell all hit double digits in scoring, with Mastin

leading the team with 18 points. 

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“I think we have to play hard and play together,” said Champagne.

“We’ve only got 10 guys, so it’s not like we’ve got an abundance of

talent. I like our team and we’ve got talent in certain spots. I

think we’ve got good chemistry right now.” 

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The team has a tough road ahead as they will play several good

conference and non-conference opponents.

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“We play Missouri, they’ll be pretty good,” said Champagne.

“Alabama-Huntsville is No. 20 in the country. Valdosta State is

getting votes. Everybody in our league is pretty good.

Unfortunately, we have Florida Southern, Montevallo, Eckerd, and

Georgia College as our non-conference games, so there are really no

easy ones.” 

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The Lions start off their 2010-2011 season with six-straight road

games, which is tough on any team, especially one as young as

UNA.

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“It is six games but it’s two one weekend two the next weekend, so

we kind of hop on a bus, come back and practice,” said

Champagne. 

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“With a young team like this it would be nice to play at home, but

when we set up the schedule we weren’t planning on having a whole

new roster. Florida Southern has already been tested; they played

Butler, Maryland, and they play Miami, so that one will be a good

one for us.”

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Coach Champagne has not decided on any long term goals for this

year’s season as he prefers to think of the here and now. 

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“I really haven’t thought about it other than to get better every

day,” said Champagne. “That’s kind of what we’ve been doing, just

getting better every day as a team. 

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I haven’t put in any goals as far as winning or number of games. I

just hope we’re competitive throughout the year.”