CHARLESTON — On a night when Fairmont State needed a big performance, preseason All-America guard Thad McFadden stepped to the forefront and gave his team one.
McFadden, a 6-2 senior from Flint, Mich., scored a career-high 42 points to help lead the Falcons to an important 87-80 road win over the University of Charleston here Saturday night at the Eddie King Gymnasium.
The victory was the first conference road win of the season for FSU, which ran its overall record to 11-4 and evened its West Virginia Conference mark at 4-4.
Charleston, on the other hand, fell to 9-6 overall and 4-4 in the league.
McFadden, whose previous career high in an FSU uniform was a 35-point outing in last year’s double overtime loss to West Virginia State in the WVC Tournament quarterfinals, was a red-hot 14 of 18 from the field Saturday. Included in that was a 7 of 10 showing from 3-point range. He was also 7 of 10 from the foul line, grabbed five rebounds and handed out three assists.
The youngster, who played all 40 minutes, tallied 23 of his 42 points in the first half. The 42-point outburst tied West Virginia State’s Ted Scott for the second-best single-game scoring performance of the season in the WVC. Glenville State’s Tryvan Leech scored 52 points Jan. 22 in a win over Wheeling Jesuit.
The 42-point outing was just five points shy of tying the Fairmont State school record for points in a game. Both Dave Miller (1966) and Marvin Rashad (2005) scored 47 in a single game for the Falcons.
“You know we got a lot of help tonight from a lot of different guys which may not show up in the stat lines, but boy, what can you say about Thad?” said FSU coach Tim Murphy. “In the first half you just knew it was going to be one of those nights for him. Call it whatever you want to call it, but he got going tonight. He took some shots which were unbelievable and they went in. That's just a guy being a basketball player tonight and getting it done.
“We’ve learned when he gets like that you’ve got to let him go and the rest of our guys do a great job of understanding that. We tell them ‘Get him the basketball and let’s roll.’ We want to ride him as far as we can ride him. It was just a heckuva performance and he was doing it against good defense.”
McFadden’s 23 first-half points helped FSU break open a close game and take a 15-point lead at the break. In the second half, however, UC got hot from the outside and shot themselves back into the game against Fairmont’s nagging 1-3-1 defense.
Charleston, which was led by Anthony Anderson’s 26 points, shot 56.3 percent from the field in the second half (18 of 32), including a 50 percent showing from long range (9 of 18). For the game UC, which also got 18 points from Ronald Kinney and 17 from Dexter Morris, finished 14 of 31 from behind the arc.
The 3-pointers allowed the Golden Eagles to trim FSU’s 15-point halftime lead back to five at 65-60 with 6:33 to play. That, however, is when the Falcons’ Dan Bruner took over. The 6-8 junior forward canned back-to-back 3-pointers and converted on a driving layup during a two-minute span to help push FSU’s lead back to nine and keep the Golden Eagles at bay. Bruner finished the contest with 19 points, four rebounds and four assists.
“When we recruited Dan Bruner we knew it might not be until his junior year when he would really start to develop and mature for us as a player,” said Murphy. “Now obviously he helped us during his freshman and sophomore seasons, but this year he’s a confident guy when he goes out there. You can see it in his demeanor both on the floor and in the huddles. Nothing shakes him up or rattles him. He wants to win and he’s really developing into a good leader and a good player for us.”
UC continued to battle and got to within four at 75-71 with 2:55 remaining, but Ian Grady sank a pair of free throws and with the shot clock winding down McFadden hit the last of his seven 3-pointers to push the lead back to eight at 80-72 with 46 seconds left.
Fairmont then secured the win by going 7 of 9 at the foul line in the game’s final 33 seconds.
“We needed a win in one of these two road games in the Charleston area and we got it tonight,” said Murphy. “We got ahead early and when they made runs at us, which we knew they would do, we kept plugging and kept our composure. We never let the lead slip away from us.”
FSU will be back in action Monday evening at 7:30 p.m. when it hosts Concord University at the Joe Retton Arena.
