Colonels

Alumni Coliseum McBrayer Arena

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) &mdash; Aly Khalifa scored 14 of his 20 points in the first half, Montre&rsquo; Gipson made three 3-pointer in the second half, and No. 3 seed Charlotte held off No. 8 seed Eastern Kentucky 71-68 on Wednesday night in the championship game of the College Basketball Invitational.
Charlotte (22-14) finished the season with its most wins since the 2000-01 campaign, when it took down Tennessee in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. The 49ers were appearing in the postseason for the first time since earning an at-large bid to the 2013 NIT.
Charlotte made eight of its first nine shots and led 18-5 as Eastern Kentucky only made two field goals in the opening eight minutes. Khalifa made all six of his shots in the first half to help the 49ers build a 42-24 lead at halftime after shooting 72% (18 of 25) from the field. EKU had five scoring droughts of at least 90 seconds in the first half.
It was the fourth time in the tournament the Colonels trailed at halftime &mdash; before rattling off three straight overtime wins to reach the title game.
Cooper Robb, who played at Charlotte from 2018-20, made two 3-pointers during EKU&rsquo;s 12-5 run to open the second half. But Charlotte kept its double-digit lead until the 8:44 mark when EKU scored 13 unanswered points.
Robb made a steal and raced the other way for a long 3-pointer to get EKU within 69-68 with 47.4 seconds left. Isaiah Folkes answered with a layup, off a nice pass by Gipson, for a three-point lead with 16 seconds left. After a timeout, Robb had a 3-point attempt blocked by Brice Williams and Tayshawn Comer had another attempt for EKU but it came up short.
Williams, averaging a team-high 14 points per game, finished with six points, five rebounds and two blocks for Charlotte. Gipson added 13 points, Lu&rsquo;Cye Patterson had 11 and Folkes scored 10.
Robb made five 3-pointers and scored 17 points for Eastern Kentucky (23-14), which had the third-most wins in program history. Michael Moreno added 14 points and Devontae Blanton, averaging a team-high 17.4 points, was scoreless in the first half and did not play after halftime.
Isaiah Cozart was held to 10 points and four rebounds after securing a double-double in Eastern Kentucky&rsquo;s opening three tournament games. Cozart set a career-highs for points (20) and rebounds (17) in the opener, and he scored a career-best 31 points in the semifinals.
The CBI trophy remains in the state of North Carolina after UNC Wilmington defeated Middle Tennessee last season.

Charlotte (22-14) finished the season with its most wins since the 2000-01 campaign.

Charlotte wins CBI title, holds off Eastern Kentucky 71-68

WASHINGTON (AP) &mdash; Russia freed WNBA star Brittney Griner on Thursday in a dramatic prisoner exchange, as the U.S. released notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout but failed to win freedom for another American, Paul Whelan, who has been jailed for nearly four years.
The swap, at a time of heightened tensions over Ukraine, achieved a top goal for President Joe Biden but carried a heavy price.
&ldquo;She&rsquo;s safe, she&rsquo;s on a plane, she&rsquo;s on her way home,&rdquo; Biden said from the White House, where he was accompanied by Griner&rsquo;s wife, Cherelle, and administration officials.
The deal, the second such exchange in eight months with Russia, procured the release of the most prominent American detained abroad. Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist whose monthslong imprisonment on drug charges brought unprecedented attention to the population of wrongful detainees.
Biden&rsquo;s authorization to release a Russian felon once nicknamed &ldquo;the Merchant of Death&rdquo; underscored the escalating pressure that his administration faced to get Griner home, particularly after the recent resolution of her criminal case and her subsequent transfer to a penal colony.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also confirmed the swap, saying in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that the exchange took place in Abu-Dhabi and that Bout has been flown home
Russian and U.S. officials had conveyed cautious optimism in recent weeks after months of strained negotiations, with Biden saying in November that he was hopeful that Russia would engage in a deal now that the midterm elections were completed. A top Russian official said last week that a deal was possible before year&rsquo;s end.
Even so, the fact that the deal was a one-for-one swap was a surprise given that U.S. officials had for months expressed their their determination to bring home both Griner and Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government has said are baseless.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve not forgotten about Paul Whelan,&rdquo; Biden said. &ldquo;We will keep negotiating in good faith for Paul&rsquo;s release.&rdquo;
Whelan&rsquo;s brother David said in a statement he was &ldquo;so glad&rdquo; for Griner&rsquo;s release but also disappointed for his family. He credited the White House with giving the Whelan family advance notice and said he did not fault officials for making the deal.
&ldquo;The Biden Administration made the right decision to bring Ms. Griner home, and to make the deal that was possible, rather than waiting for one that wasn&rsquo;t going to happen,&rdquo; he said.
In releasing Bout, the U.S. freed a a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel whom the Justice Department once described as one of the world&rsquo;s most prolific arms dealers. Bout, whose exploits inspired a Hollywood movie, was serving a 25-year sentence on charges that he conspired to sell tens of millions of dollars in weapons that U.S officials said were to be used against Americans.
The Biden administration was ultimately willing to exchange Bout if it meant Griner&rsquo;s freedom. The detention of one of the greatest players in WNBA history contributed to a swirl of unprecedented public attention for an individual detainee case &mdash; not to mention intense pressure on the White House.
Griner&rsquo;s arrest in February made her the most high-profile American jailed abroad. Her status as an openly gay Black woman, locked up in a country where authorities have been hostile to the LBGTQ community, infused racial, gender and social dynamics into her legal saga and made each development a matter of international importance.
Her case not only brought unprecedented publicity to the dozens of Americans wrongfully detained by foreign governments, but it also emerged as a major inflection point in U.S.-Russia diplomacy at a time of deteriorating relations prompted by Moscow&rsquo;s war against Ukraine.
The exchange was carried out despite deteriorating relations between the powers. But the imprisonment of Americans produced a rare diplomatic opening, yielding the highest-level known contact between Washington and Moscow &mdash; a phone call between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov &mdash; in more than five months.
In an extraordinary move during otherwise secret negotiations, Blinken revealed publicly in July that the U.S. had made a &ldquo;substantial proposal&rdquo; to Russia for Griner and Whelan. Though he did not specify the terms, people familiar with it said the U.S. had offered Bout.
Such a public overture drew a chiding rebuke from the Russians, who said they preferred to resolve such cases in private, and carried the risk of weakening the U.S. government&rsquo;s negotiating hand for this and future deals by making the administration appear too desperate. But the announcement was also meant to communicate to the public that Biden was doing what he could and to ensure pressure on the Russians.
Besides the efforts of U.S. officials, the release also followed months of back channel negotiations involving Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a frequent emissary in hostage talks, and his top deputy, Mickey Bergman.
Griner was arrested at the Moscow&rsquo;s Sheremetyevo Airport in February when customs officials said they found vape canisters with cannabis oil in her luggage. She pleaded guilty in July, though still faced trial because admitting guilt in Russia&rsquo;s judicial system does not automatically end a case.
She acknowledged in court that she possessed the canisters, but said she had no criminal intent and said their presence in her luggage was due to hasty packing.
Before being sentenced on Aug. 4 and receiving a punishment her lawyers said was out of line for the offense, an emotional Griner apologized &ldquo;for my mistake that I made and the embarrassment that I brought on them.&rdquo; She added: &ldquo;I hope in your ruling it does not end my life.&rdquo;
Her supporters had largely stayed quiet for weeks after her arrest, but that approach changed in May once the State Department designated her as unlawfully detained. A separate trade, Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in the U.S. in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy, spurred hope that additional such exchanges could be in the works.
Whelan has been held in Russia since December 2018. The U.S. government also classified him as wrongfully detained. He was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison.
Whelan was not included in the Reed prisoner swap, escalating pressure on the Biden administration to ensure that any deal that brought home Griner also included him.

“She’s safe, she’s on a plane, she’s on her way home,” Biden said from the White House, accompanied by Griner’s wife, Cherelle.

WNBA star Griner freed in swap for Russian arms dealer Bout

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) &mdash; Aliyah Boston missed the second half of No. 1 South Carolina&rsquo;s game against Hampton on Sunday with her right foot in a walking boot, but reserves Bree Hall and Ashlyn Watkins scored 14 points each in an 85-38 win.
Kamila Cardoso added 11 points and 14 rebounds for South Carolina. It was the 6-foot-7 forward&rsquo;s eighth career double-double.
Boston, the reigning Associated Press Player of the Year, took a hard fall on a drive to the basket late in the second quarter and needed several moments to stand up. Soon after, she headed to the locker room before the period ended.
Boston did not come out for the start of the third quarter, returning to the bench midway through the period with a walking boot on her right foot. Boston spent the rest of the game cheering on her teammates, who improved to 6-0 this season and 5-0 all-time against the Pirates.
No. 2 STANFORD 68, HAWAII 39
HONOLULU (AP) &mdash; Ashten Pretchel scored 12 of her season-high 17 points in the first half to help Stanford easily defeat Hawaii on the final day of the Rainbow Wahine Showdown.
The Cardinal (7-1) erased an early deficit and held the Rainbow Wahine (1-6) to a season-low scoring output.
Pretchel came off the bench and shot 6 of 10 from the field, including hitting five 3-pointers. She also grabbed 11 rebounds.
Lily Wahinekapu led Hawaii with 12 points.
NO. 3 UCONN 86, NO. 9 IOWA 79
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) &mdash; Azzi Fudd scored 24 points to rally UConn past Iowa in the championship game of the first Phil Knight Legacy women&rsquo;s tournament.
Fudd had plenty of help, with Aaliyah Edwards (20 points, 13 rebounds) and three other Huskies (5-0) scoring in double-figures. Edwards was named MVP of the tournament.
Iowa (5-2) star Caitlin Clark had 25 points, and Kate Martin added 20.
Edwards got UConn off to a strong start, scoring 10 points while the Huskies built a 20-14 edge.
Clark and the Hawkeyes then surged with a 13-2 run to begin the second quarter and led 41-35 at halftime. Clark scored 17 points in the first half.
NO. 4 OHIO STATE 105, NORTH ALABAMA 67
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) &mdash; Rebeka Mikulasikova scored 23 points and Cotie McMahon added 20 to lead Ohio State past North Alabama.
The Buckeyes (6-0) shot 58.6% from the field as all five starters reached double figures in scoring.
North Alabama (3-3) trailed by eight points with less than eight minutes to go in the second quarter, but Ohio State extended its lead on an 11-0 run keyed by five points from Madison Greene.
The Buckeyes held a 59-37 lead at halftime and stretched it to as large as 39 with less than three minutes remaining.
No. 8 NORTH CAROLINA 73, No. 5 IOWA STATE 64
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) &mdash; Deja Kelly scored 29 points to power North Carolina to a 17-point comeback over Iowa State and win in the championship game of the Phil Knight Invitational tournament.
Kennedy Todd-Williams added 17 points to help the Tar Heels (6-0) complete the comeback and remain undefeated on the season. Alyssa Ustby contributed 14 points, nine rebounds, three steals and two blocks.
Stephanie Soares led the Cyclones (5-1) with 19 points and 12 rebounds, while Ashley Joens had 18 points and nine rebounds as Iowa State suffered its first loss of the year.
NO. 11 VIRGINIA TECH 89, LONGWOOD 28
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) &mdash; Elizabeth Kitley had a double-double, Kayana Traylor added a double-double off the bench, and Virginia Tech rolled over Longwood.
Kitley had 23 points and 14 rebounds for the Hokies. Traylor had 11 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and two steals. Ashley Owusu scored 21 points, making 4 of 5 3-pointers.
The Hokies established a program record by holding South Carolina Upstate to 24 points on Nov. 14. Longwood passed 24 points when Adriana Shipp-Davis made a layup with 4:44 remaining.
Shipp-Davis had seven rebounds for Longwood (1-5). The Lancers shot 16.7% overall, which was also their 3-point percentage (3-for-18).
NO. 14 MARYLAND 87, PITTSBURGH 63
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) &mdash; Abby Meyers scored 12 of her 23 points in Maryland&rsquo;s 36-point third quarter and the Terrapins rolled past Pittsburgh to finish the Ft. Myers Tip-Off.
Brinae Alexander hit three 3-pointers in the Terps&rsquo; biggest quarter of the season and was 5 of 7 from distance to finish with 17 points. Lavender Briggs contributed 10 points as the three transfers had their biggest outputs of the season for Maryland. Shyanne Sellers added 13 points for the Terrapins (6-2), who went 2-1 in the tournament.
Maryland went 7 of 10 behind the arc and shot 55% in the second half.
Maliyah Johnson had 15 points for the Panthers (5-2), who only had one less 3-pointer but was outscored by 13 at the foul line where Maryland was 20 of 23.
No. 18 OREGON 86, MICHIGAN STATE 78
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) &mdash; Endyia Rogers scored 19 points, including critical back-to-back 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, Phillipina Kyei had a double-double with career highs and Oregon held off Michigan State in the third-place game of the Phil Knight Invitational.
The Ducks led 29-12 when Rogers scored the opening basket of the second quarter but the Spartans slowly came back behind Kamaria McDaniel, who had a season-high 28 points. McDaniel hit a 3-pointer and Matilda Ekh had a steal and layup and Michigan State tied the game with 7:17 to play.
That&rsquo;s when Rogers, who had a career-high five 3-pointers, scored from distance, the first coming after a timeout and the Ducks regained control.
Isaline Alexander scored 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting and Ekh 12 for the Spartans (6-2).
NO. 19 TEXAS 74, PRINCETON 50
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) &mdash; Sonya Morris scored 15 points, Taylor Jones notched a double-double and Texas breezed to a victory over Princeton.
Morris sank 5 of 10 shots from the floor with two 3-pointers for Texas (3-3). Jones finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Rori Harmon had 11 points and Aaliyah Moore scored 10.
The Longhorns picked up their second straight win after a three-game losing streak. Texas fell 16 spots in the AP poll.
Kaitlyn Chen topped Princeton (3-2) with 15 points. Julia Cunningham added 10 points. Ellie Mitchell came into the game leading the nation with 16.2 rebounds per game. She didn&rsquo;t score and had seven boards.
No. 22 MICHIGAN 84, No. 21 BAYLOR 75
ESTERO, Fla. (AP) &mdash; Emily Kiser scored 26 points on 10-of-13 shooting and grabbed 13 rebounds, Laila Phelia added 20 points and Michigan scored the final 11 points to beat Baylor in the championship game of the Gulf Coast Showcase.
Maddie Nolan scored seven of her 12 points in a 20-5 run over the final 4-plus minutes and Leigha Brown finished with 11 points, eight rebounds and six assists forMichigan (7-0).
Ja&rsquo;Mee Asberry scored inside to give Baylor a 75-73 lead with 2 minutes to go but Brown made a layup and, after a missed 3-point shot on the other end, grabbed her own offensive rebound and kicked it out to Phelia for a 3 that gave the Wolverines the lead for good with 48 seconds to go.
Jaden Owens scored 22 points on 9-of-13 shooting for the Bears.
NO. 23 TENNESSEE 105, EASTERN KENTUCKY 71
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) &mdash; Rickea Jackson scored 15 points to lead a balanced attack and Tennessee coasted to a win over Eastern Kentucky.
Jordan Horston added 14 points for the Lady Vols (4-4), Jillian Hollingshead and Tamari Key 13 each and Karoline Striplin 10. Jackson and Horston both had five assists and joined Hollingshead with eight rebounds.
Antwainette Walker scored 18 points for the Colonels (4-3).
NO. 23 VILLANOVA 72, SOUTH FLORIDA 50
ESTERO, Fla. (AP) &mdash; Maddy Siegrist scored 25 points to surpass 2,000 for her career and Villanova used a hot start to beat South Florida in the third-place game at the Gulf Coast Showcase.
Siegrist scored 13 points in the first half and 10 in the third quarter as the Wildcats (6-1) took a 58-36 lead. Lucy Olsen scored 10 of her 13 before the break.
Siegrist became the third player in Villanova history to reach the 2,000-point plateau when she hit a jumper at 3:46 of the third quarter to put the Wildcats up 50-31.
Sammie Puisis scored 17 points for the Bulls (7-2). Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu had 14 points with 17 rebounds &mdash; matching her career high, and Elena Tsineke scored 11.

Boston, the reigning Associated Press Player of the Year, took a hard fall on a drive to the basket late in the second quarter.

Boston hurt in No. 1 Gamecocks’ win; No. 3 UConn tops Iowa

This is excerpt from Jon Finkel&rsquo;s new book &ldquo;Windmills &amp; Tomahawks: Nine Chapters on Dominique Wilkins,&rdquo; which is available Amazon <a href="https://amzn.to/3rmFUEs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> or as a PDF on Gumroad <a href="https://jonfinkel.gumroad.com/l/ztFyb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. 
You know those moments in boxing matches when you can tell by the way a fighter is sitting in his corner that he&rsquo;s out of gas? His shoulders are rounded. He&rsquo;s sweaty but somehow dry-looking. His legs are heavy and far apart.
As his chest heaves and the trainer screams &ldquo;stick and move&rdquo; while smothering his eyebrows with Vaseline, the fighter stares straight ahead. He&rsquo;s not dazed, but he&rsquo;s not all there either. Then the bell rings and he rises, summoning the will to roll back into the ring.
This was Dominique Wilkins heading into the fourth quarter of game No. 81 of the 1985-86 NBA season. &rsquo;Nique was in a decimal-point duel with the Utah Jazz&rsquo;s Adrian Dantley and the Denver Nuggets&rsquo; Alex English for the season scoring title. Dantley was sitting at 29.83 points per game and English at 29.8, mere tenths of a point from crossing that magical 30-points-per-game threshold and, in this case, winning the scoring crown.
Dantley was, in today&rsquo;s parlance, a bucket. The guy averaged 30 points per game for four-straight seasons from 1981 to 1984. He&rsquo;d won two NBA scoring titles and had been in the top five several times. Alex English, a.k.a. &ldquo;The Blade,&rdquo; led the league in scoring in 1983. He, too, was a bucket.
What this means is that heading into the final few games of the &rsquo;86 season, &rsquo;Nique wasn&rsquo;t trading jabs with some chumps for the scoring title &mdash; he was battling heavyweight scoring champions.
Accordingly, he knew exactly where he stood heading into that 81st game against the New Jersey Nets. He knew what he had, and he knew what he needed to grab the scoring crown. The only people standing in his way were 6-foot-11, 250-pound Mike Gminski; 6-foot-9, 230-pound Jeff Turner; 6-foot-8, 250-pound Buck Williams, and the rest of the Nets frontcourt.
Didn&rsquo;t matter.
Throughout the &rsquo;86 season, Dominique Wilkins had seen a million defenders&hellip; and he&rsquo;d dunked &rsquo;em all. (h/t Bon Jovi).
He scored 32 in the season opener against the Washington Bullets and 40 in the fourth game against the Boston Celtics. He cruised at altitude through most of November, bouncing between 30-point games and 20-point games, and then hit the stratosphere starting in December. He had 10 games of 30 points or more from early December to early January, including this run from December 19 to January 7 with games of 29, 49, 35, 36, 32, 27, and 37 points.
The 49-point game came against the Houston Rockets, back when Hakeem Olajuwon was Akeem. The final bucket in that contest was a game-winning three-pointer with eight seconds left. It was a career high for Wilkins at the time, and it nudged him into third place in the scoring race behind English and Dantley.
&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s not an All-Star performance, I want to see the other guys in the league,&rdquo; Hawks coach Mike Fratello said.
After a two-game &ldquo;drought&rdquo; of scoring in the mid-20s following that game-winner, Wilkins laid the smack down in January, crushing defenses like Bruce Lee&rsquo;s fist through slabs of concrete. Bam. Bam. Bam.
Thirty-six against the Celtics.
Thirty-three against the Bucks.
Thirty-six against the Knicks.
Thirty-five against the Warriors.
Thirty-eight against the Nets.
The run included scoring 30-plus points in nine of 11 games and was capped off by setting the Arco Arena record with 43 points against the Sacramento Kings on February 13.
By early 1986, &rsquo;Nique was just about done polishing off his superstar CV. He&rsquo;d already won the dunk contest in &rsquo;85. He won the NBA&rsquo;s Player of the Month for January of &rsquo;86. He was named to his first All-Star game and scored 13 points in 17 minutes playing alongside his idol, Dr. J.
Check. Check. Check.
With two months to go, Wilkins was in third place in the scoring race behind English and Dantley, and to paraphrase Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men, he wanted that scoring title&mdash;he needed that scoring title.
Everyone who followed basketball knew that Wilkins could dunk and score, but to officially be the league&rsquo;s best dunker AND best scorer &mdash; damn, that was rarified air. Up to that point, that distinction had been occupied by one man: Julius Erving. (Yeah, I know Dr. J&rsquo;s scoring titles were in the ABA&hellip; so what.)
And there was another wrinkle.
After winning a measly 34 games in &rsquo;85, the Hawks were staring down the barrel of a potential 50-win season, one of only a handful of times the franchise had a legitimate shot of reaching that number since the team moved to Atlanta.
Add it all up and, beginning on February 21, 1986, Dominique Wilkins cracked his knuckles, rolled his shoulders, bounced his head from side to side and went full Mortal Kombat on the entire NBA.
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://cdn.basketballnews.com/images/story/body/ns_lg.jpg" alt="" width="690" height="346" />
Thirty-point games were nothing. Thirty-five-point games became normal. Forty-point games seemed to happen every week.
One night he&rsquo;d drop 38 on the Pacers, and a few days later he&rsquo;d hit the Spurs for 36. In a rare home-and-home against the 76ers in early March, he dropped 32 in the first game and 37 in the second game.
Was he tired yet?
No.
Two nights later he pasted the Bulls for 42. It was a tight game, but the Hawks won 112-108, despite Chicago throwing everything at Dominique.
&ldquo;They were really pushing me inside and played hard,&rdquo; he said afterward. &ldquo;Those 42 points, yep, we needed every one of them.&rdquo;
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Seven days later, he hit up the Celtics for 42 in a tough loss. The &ldquo;L&rdquo; halted a feel-good winning run for the Hawks that mirrored Dominique&rsquo;s onslaught. The team had won 12 of 13 games since the All-Star break and was positioning itself nicely for a top playoff spot.
At the beginning of April, the Hawks were four wins away from hitting fifty, and &rsquo;Nique was neck-and-neck-and-neck with English and Dantley for the scoring title.
Both of his goals were in his grasp.
Could he go up a level?
Would he go up a level?
Yes and yes.
On April 4 and 5, the NBA scoring lead changed hands for the 17th and 18th times that season. English had been (barely) holding on to the top spot since February, but lost it when he had an off night against Sacramento and only scored 18 points. This dropped his scoring average to 29.62. On the same night, Dantley poured in 42 against the Clippers, raising his average to 29.75 and giving him the lead.
Meanwhile, Dominique smoked the Washington Bullets for 33 and 46 in back-to-back games. The 33-point game put him in second place with a 29.64 average and his 46-point effort put him in the lead for the first time all season with a 29.9 points-per-game average. He also set another arena scoring record, tying the 46 points that Elgin Baylor put up at Capital Centre 11 years earlier.
So, with four games to go, &rsquo;Nique was in first place by a fraction of a point and the Hawks had 47 wins. After scoring 28 in a loss to the Bulls, neither &rsquo;Nique nor his squad had any wiggle room left. It was do or die. Atlanta needed to win out to hit the magic number of 50, and &rsquo;Nique likely needed to score 35 per game (at least) to capture the scoring crown.
In game No. 80, Wilkins scored 37 points, including 12 in the fourth quarter, to help secure the win. With two games remaining, here&rsquo;s where things stood:
Hawks&rsquo; win total: 48
&nbsp;
Scoring leaders:
Wilkins: 29.93 PPG
Dantley: 29.78 PPG
English: 29.70 PPG
Now we&rsquo;ve caught up to where we started this chapter &mdash; game No. 81 against the Nets and their defensive bullies.
With the 50-win total in sight and the scoring title on the brink, Wilkins shifted his car into no-more-bullshit gear and eviscerated the poor New Jersey Nets.
He scored 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting in the first quarter, and by the end of three quarters he had 41 points. It was a scoring onslaught, but the game remained tight and the scoring race was tighter. When the buzzer sounded to start the fourth quarter, &rsquo;Nique shook off the fatigue and became a hoops version of Muhammad Ali, floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee, and draining buckets. He reeled off nine points in less than five minutes, including a hard lay-up, a dunk off a pass from Spud Webb, and a few jumpers. This gave him a career-high 50 points.
He was on fumes, but he wasn&rsquo;t done.
He hit a powerhouse baseline slam to get to 52 and then a double-clutch reverse dunk that completely emptied his tank and gave him 54 points. After the dunk, you could see it on his face. He was cashed out. His adrenaline was gone. His legs were spent. He needed a break, and coach Mike Fratello took him out for a breather.
When he returned four minutes later, he was out of rhythm. Still, he managed three more points on a jumper and a foul shot, giving him 57 on the night.
It was a new personal best.
It broke the scoring record for The Omni (52 by Nate Archibald in 1973).
It tied Bob Pettit&rsquo;s franchise record from back in 1961 when the team played in St. Louis.
Most importantly, his record game helped give the Hawks their 49th win with one game to go and put Dominique firmly in the lead for the scoring title.
His scoring average was now 30.285, a few tenths of a point ahead of English and Dantley.
&ldquo;I tell you, all these guys were looking out for me tonight,&rdquo; Wilkins said after the game. &ldquo;They were really great to me. I can&rsquo;t tell you how much I owe them.&rdquo;
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As for how he felt?
First, he was exhausted, acknowledging that he was dead tired by the end of the game.
&ldquo;I had to come out,&rdquo; Wilkins said, joking that on a tired scale of one to 10, he was an 11. &ldquo;I was tired and trying too hard.&rdquo;
And yet, one game remained.
One game to get to 50 wins.
One game to secure his scoring title.
Two days later, the scoring title was Dominique&rsquo;s when both English and Dantley conceded and sat out their final games. After crunching the numbers, even if Wilkins had somehow scored zero points in his last game, Dantley would have needed 68 points in his final game to overtake &rsquo;Nique and English would have needed 70. Wilkins&rsquo; 81st-game output was too overpowering.
&ldquo;I never thought I would be this far ahead going into the last game,&rdquo; Wilkins joked.
Rather than a three-way battle for the scoring title on the final day of the season, game No. 82 against Indiana was all about the Hawks getting their 50th win. As he&rsquo;d done all season, Wilkins said, &ldquo;I got this,&rdquo; and continued his one-man assault on the NBA&rsquo;s defenses. By the time the Pacers looked up, &rsquo;Nique had 25 points at the half, putting him on pace for back-to-back 50-point outings. The Hawks won easily, 108-91, and with the franchise-tying 50th win in hand, he took his foot off the gas and finished with 34 points.
In the end, he won the scoring title by half a point.
He averaged 30.333 points per game, Dantley averaged 29.829, and English averaged 29.802.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take it any way I can get it,&rdquo; Wilkins said after the game.
The season-long performance also earned one final commendation when Dominique finished second in the MVP voting to Larry Bird. Magic Johnson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Charles Barkley finished third through sixth.
***
This was an excerpt from Jon Finkel&rsquo;s new digital biography Windmills &amp; Tomahawks: Nine Chapters on Dominique Wilkins. Buy it on Amazon <a href="https://amzn.to/3rmFUEs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> or buy the PDF on Gumroad <a href="https://jonfinkel.gumroad.com/l/ztFyb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. 
Finkel&rsquo;s books have been endorsed by everyone from Spike Lee and Kevin Durant to Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Cuban. His most recent books are 1996: A Biography and Hoops Heist: Seattle, the Sonics and How a Stolen Team&rsquo;s Legacy Gave Rise to the NBA&rsquo;s Secret Empire. You can follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Jon_Finkel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

This excerpt from "Windmills & Tomahawks" by Jon Finkel explores how Dominique Wilkins captured the NBA scoring title in 1985-86.

Eastern Kentucky Colonels