Trailing 37-33 at the half, the Belmont Abbey men's basketball team shot 56 percent in the second half as it outscored Queens 50-39 to earn an 83-76 win this evening before a raucous capacity crowd made up of the Red Sea, the Abbey student section, at the Wheeler Center this evening. The Abbey, winners of two-straight, improve to 8-7 overall and 4-5 in Conference Carolinas, while the Royals fall to 6-10 overall and 3-6 in Conference Carolinas.

Abbey junior guard Richard Barbee and freshman guard Harvin Council, Jr. both led the way with 20 points apiece, while senior guard Patrick Kuhlman added 16 points, with three coming with 1:00 minute left to stretch the Abbey lead to four points. Council's 20 points are a career-high. Sophomore forward Kyle Phillips added 15. Barbee's eight rebounds tied for the game-high as the Crusaders won the rebounding battle by a 37-36 count.

Queens's Daniel Bailey led four Royals in double figures with 16 points, while Reggie Hopkins and Devon Seaford added 14. Antonio Stabler posted 11. Queens shot 42 percent (24-56) from the field while the Abbey posted a 45 percent (31-69) effort.

The opening stanza featured two ties and four lead changes, but the Royals took the lead for good in the half on a trifecta by Sean Eads with 10:47 remaining. The Royals led climbed to as high as nine points, but the Crusaders closed the half on a 7-2 run to cut the advantage to four at 37-33 at the break.

The final 20 minutes opened with both teams exchanging leads for the first five minutes, with neither team building its cushion higher than three points. A three-pointer by Seaford with 12:41 left deadlocked the game for the final time at 53, but 25 seconds later, a layup by Barbee gave the Abbey the lead for good.

Belmont Abbey's lead rose as high as seven points at 65-58 with 7:33 left, but an 8-2 Queens spurt over the next 47 seconds trimmed the Abbey lead to one at 67-66. An Abbey mini-run fueled by a layup from Phillips and two Council free throws pushed the lead back to five, but another Queens run closed the lead back to one point at 74-73 with 3:05 left, but Queens would only score once more from the field on a layup with one second left.

Up by one and the shot clock under ten seconds, Kuhlman buried the final three of his 16 points from the right corner to extend the Abbey's lead back to four, which ignited a 9-3 game closing run to seal the win.