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Anderson, Richmond edge Xavier

Mar 8, 2009 - 5:02 AM RICHMOND, Virginia (Ticker) -- Kevin Anderson scored a career-high 29 points and Justin Harper had 20 and eight rebounds as Richmond knocked off No. 17 Xavier, 80-75, on Saturday.

The Spiders (16-15, 9-7 Atlantic 10) shot 51 percent (28-of-55) from the floor en route to their first win over the Musketeers since 2004.

"I'm thrilled," Richmond coach Chris Mooney said. "This is a great win for us and certainly improves our seeding in Atlantic City. More importantly what it does for our confidence to beat a team and a program like Xavier is great."

Anderson shot 10-of-20 from the floor and was 9-of-10 from the line, playing all 40 minutes.

"Kevin's great and this isn't the first time I've seen him play like this," Mooney said. "He was attacking and a high-degree of difficulty on some those shots. He felt very confident they were going to have a hard time guarding him and he really attacked the game. These are the kinds of games he's capable of having and we're thrilled he's just a sophomore."

Richmond closed the first half strong to take an eight-point lead into the locker rooms and David Gonzalvez's 3-pointer pushed the Spiders lead to 48-37 with 17:50 remaining.

The Spiders led by as many as 12 with 6:08 to play but the Musketeers fought back and came within 75-73 on Terrell Holloway's floater with 1:20 left. The basket capped a 9-0 run.

That was as close as Xavier could get however, as Holloway missed two key free throws and B.J. Raymond and Dante Jackson each missed a game-tying 3-pointer in the final seconds. Harper made two foul shots to seal the victory.

Raymond scored 17 points and Derrick Brown had 16 for the Musketeers (24-6, 11-4), who will be the No. 1 seed in next week's A-10 Conference tournament.

"I thought our offense was plenty good enough and our players wanted to win, but we didn't have that pop defensively that we needed," Xavier coach Sean Miller said.