Box Score  

PEMBROKE – The UNC Pembroke men's basketball team battled back from a 22-point first-half deficit to take the lead on a pair of free throws by Mike Smith with 3:59 left, but All-Army forced a clutch turnover with 56 seconds left to key a 79-73 win over the Braves in exhibition action on Sunday at Lumbee Guaranty Bank Court.
 
The setback signaled the unofficial start of the 2016-17 campaign for the Braves who will play two more exhibition contests against NCAA Division I competition before opening regular season play on November 11 against Lenoir-Rhyne. All-Army now leads the series with the Black & Gold by a 2-1 count.
 
Newcomer Andrew Evans fueled a team-best 18-point effort with 4-of-7 perimeter shooting to pace the Black & Gold, who also got 14 points from Brandon Watts and 10 more from freshman Micah Kinsey. Akia Pruitt finished with eight points and 11 boards in his collegiate debut as well.
 
Former all-Missouri Valley Conference standout Mamadou Seck, who played collegiately at Southern Illinois, scored a game-high 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the field for All-Army. Former UNC Pembroke standout Marcus Heath (2009-12) added 16 points for the visitors on 5-of-8 shooting.
 
UNC Pembroke shot better than 62 percent from the field through the first 11 minutes of the second half and slowly chipped away at a 17-point halftime deficit before Smith eventually gave the hosts their first lead eight minutes later. Seck's jumper on the other end of the floor would give All-Army the lead for good, however.
 
Despite trailing by five points with 74 seconds left, Evans pulled the Braves to within a single possession on a clutch 3-pointer from the corner that made it a 75-73 contest. Heath converted on two free throws on the ensuing possession, however, and Kinsey missed a 3-pointer from the top of the key to seal the outcome.
 
The Braves canned just two of their first 15 shots and fell behind by as much as 22 points, 40-18, after a 3-pointer by Seck with 3:52 left before the intermission. UNCP whittled that deficit back down to a manageable 15 points on a free throw by Smith just more than three minutes later, but trailed 47-30 heading into the lockerrooms.
 
UNCP will resume its preseason exhibition schedule on November 4 when it heads to Chapel Hill to take on North Carolina in a 7:30 p.m. contest inside the Dean Smith Center. The Black & Gold will then get a short turnaround as it hops into a different time zone the following evening (November 5) to battle Houston in a 7 p.m. CDT contest at Hofheinz Pavilion.