MACON, Ga. - The UWG men's basketball team dropped their Wednesday morning contest against the Mercer Bears on the road, falling 86-72 at Hawkins Arena.
West Georgia (0-10) got off to a slow start and couldn't dig themselves out of the hole against a Mercer (4-4) team that shot 52 percent from the field and hit 10 three-pointers.
Three players recorded career-highs for the Wolves as Shelton Williams-Dryden posted another double-double with a career-high 23 points and 11 rebounds. Demetrus Johson II and Rickey Ballard also notched career-bests with 12 and 11 points, respectively.
"Mercer's a really good team, they're really well coached and they've got good players. It was a good environment today with the kids here and that was great to see," said head coach Dave Moore. "I thought we had our moments, you know, we didn't start out great, but they certainly did."
In the opening half, West Georgia struggled to find the bottom of the basket, shooting just 36 percent while the Bears shot nearly 60 percent from field in the first 20 minutes.
Rickey Ballard, who got his first career start in a UWG uniform, hit the first basket of the game, and from there, Mercer heated up and built a 10-point lead by the 15:19 mark of the period.
Mercer's lead would fluctuate over the remainder of the half, as West Georgia used a 9-2 run to cut it to a five-point deficit with just under 11 to play only for Mercer to get their lead back to 15 by the 2:28 point.
West Georgia would trail by 11 at 40-29 at the halftime break with Malcolm Noel leading the Wolves offensively at the midway point.
In half number two, Mercer led by as much as 23 points before the Wolves made a run to get the deficit back to 10 points late in the half.
"It didn't look good there in the second half down 23, but we had some guys fighting back and I was proud of the fight," Moore added. "We're struggling with our balance offensively, Rickey gave us some shot making, Shelton was terrific as usual, but like I told the guys, we've just got to keep fighting, keep getting better, and we'll get there."
The Wolves would finish the game shooting 42 percent from the field and would hit eight threes, five of which came from Johnson and Ballard combined. As a team, the Wolves shot 14-of-15 from the line including a 9-for-9 mark in the second half.
Mercer was led by Tyler Johnson who finished with 24 points.
West Georgia will now return home for a Saturday contest with Tennessee Tech. The Wolves and Golden Eagles met earlier this year in Cookeville with Tech taking a 76-73 win.
"We've got to stay dedicated to each other, and stay connected going forward," said Moore in closing. "The fight, and the scrap, and the battle has been there most of the year, but we'll have to have it for 40 minutes Saturday against Tennessee Tech to give us our best chance to go win."
Tip-time on Saturday is set for 2 p.m. from The Coliseum in Carrollton.
