AUGUSTA, Ga. — The University of North Carolina at Pembroke men’s basketball team’s successful 2022-23 season came to a sudden and screeching halt Saturday at the hands of North Georgia, who dominated the Braves in a 76-58 win in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

“I thought we really competed in stretches, and in other stretches especially our offense went kind of nil, and it kind of affected our intensity on the defensive end,” UNCP coach Drew Richards said.

Seventh-seeded North Georgia (21-7), which entered the tournament as the 10th-best team nationally in field-goal percentage, shot 52.8% from the floor (28-for-53); while the second-seeded Braves (26-4) weren’t terribly cold at 41.4% (24-for-58), UNCP struggled to a 19.2% clip from distance (5-for-26) and was outrebounded by the Nighthawks 39-30.

“In order to be successful, you’ve got to be able to both execute your offense, get easy shots and then also get stops on the defensive end,” Richards said. “I thought we had some good looks that just didn’t go in, and then I thought whenever they stopped going in it kind of affected our defense and rebounding, and that’s not how we play basketball, that’s not how we’ve been successful.”

UNCP took a 15-11 lead after a K.J. Walker layup with 9:13 left in the first half; North Georgia took the lead at 18-17 after a Greg Billups basket at the 7:40 mark, and the Nighthawks never trailed again. North Georgia led by six points on two occasions late in the first half, and led 32-27 at halftime.

Three baskets by Bradlee Haskell propelled a 10-5 stretch out of halftime favoring the Braves, tying the game at 37-37 with 17:28 to go.

“I thought early in the second half, we kind of got a little bit of mojo offensively when Brad made some shots and some other guys made some plays, but I thought on the other end defensively we got a little stagnant a little bit, we didn’t have much energy and we were kind of focused more on the offensive end than the defensive end,” Richards said.

North Georgia answered with a 7-0 run, with by a 3 by Hunter Shenenhelm and baskets by Billups and Frank Champion, for a 44-37 advantage; the Nighthawks continued to gradually increase their lead, and took a double-figure lead for the first time at 57-46 with 9:18 remaining.

UNCP cut the North Georgia lead to 61-52, but the Nighthawks went on a 15-5 run to go up 76-57 and put away the victory. The Nighthawks advanced to face No. 3 Lincoln Memorial in the second round Sunday.

Nygell Verdier scored 16 points for UNCP, JaJuan Carr had 13 points and Bradlee Haskell scored 10. Elijah Cobb had eight points with nine rebounds.

Giancarlo Bastianoni led North Georgia with 25 points and nine rebounds. Frank Champion had 17 points, eight rebounds and four assists and A.J. White scored 13 points.

The Braves reached the NCAA Tournament after winning a second-straight Conference Carolinas regular-season championship, despite having to replace about 80% of the scoring production from last year’s team. Now, with the entire team except K.J. Walker and Qon Murphy expected to return, the Braves will get back to work as they seek to return to the postseason in 2024.

“These guys know, once this pain goes away, once the banner gets hung in the gym and the rings get fitted, it’s back to work, and I think with the group we have coming back, they know the banner we care being a part of UNCP basketball, and they know it’s going to make them work harder and motivate them to — hopefully next year we’re not sitting here after the first round but we’re sitting here trying to make a deeper run in the NCAA Tournament,” Richards said. “I think with what we have returning, I think we have a chance to do it, as long as we don’t get complacent and we get better.”