The Orange Panthers are on the road again on Tuesday and plays the Person Rockets at 7:30 p.m. on February 6th. One thing working in Orange's favor is that they have posted big point totals in their last nine contests.
Last Friday, Orange got the win against the Fighting Red Wolves by a conclusive 68-42. Given Orange's advantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 183rd, while the Fighting Red Wolves are ranked 525th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Orange relied on the efforts of Mason Robinson, who dropped a double-double on ten points and 18 rebounds, and Coleman Cloer, who dropped a double-double on 24 points and 11 rebounds. That makes it four consecutive games in which Cloer has scored at least a third of Orange's points. Xandrell Pennix was another key contributor, scoring 11 points along with six steals.
Meanwhile, Person unfortunately witnessed the end of their three-game winning streak on Friday. They took a 77-70 hit to the loss column at the hands of Southern Alamance. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game last Friday (62), Person still had to take the loss.
Orange is on a roll lately: they've won nine of their last 12 matches, which provided a nice bump to their 11-10 record this season. As for Person, they dropped their record down to 12-7 with that defeat, which was their fifth straight on the road.
Orange didn't have too much breathing room in their matchup against the Rockets in their previous matchup back in January, but they still walked away with a 63-58 victory. The rematch might be a little tougher for Orange since the squad won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
