High Point coach Bart Lundy's phone is going to be busy.

His voice mail might sound something like this:

"If you're calling about the UVSC game. Leave a message. I'll get back to you as soon as I go through all of my messages."

The other coaches on UVSC,s schedule would like to know how he did it.

High Point was coming off a 36-point beating by Utah on Wednesday night. High Point trailed by 12 points at halftime and were getting outrebounded 24-14 at intermission.

By what happened in the second half left the 500 fans in attendance shaking their heads in disbelief. High Point scored 57 points in the second half and shot a sizzling 70 percent from the field to run away from UVSC, 82-69.

"Two nights ago, we didn't play with any energy against Utah and we played the same way in the first half tonight," Lundy said. "In the second half, we played with much more heart. We knew this was a difficult place to play. I don't know if our guys know how big of a win this is but we (coaches) do. We're proud of what we did here tonight."

After shooting just 39 percent in the first half and scoring just 25 points, High Point opened the half on a 22-4 run to take control of the game.

What was most remarkable about the win was that it came at the McKay Events center, a place that UVSC coach Dick Hunsaker could count the number of losses at home with his feet.

Two.

In four years.

Everything was going according to the script in the first half. UVSC's David Heck hit a 3-pointer to give the Wolverines a 28-20 lead with four minutes left in the half. Ben Devoe scored inside on a reverse layup to push the advantage to 33-22 and Sylvester Allison closed out the first-half scoring by beating the High Point defense downcourt and scoring on a fastbreak layup to give the Wolverines a 37-25 lead at intermission.

But then came the biggest mystery of the night -- the disappearance of UVSC's defense. The Wolverines looked like the Georgia Tech defense against Utah wide receiver Travis LaTendresse in Thursday night's Emerald Bowl.

The Wolverines couldn't stop anyone.

"We just didn't guard anyone," said UVSC coach Dick Hunsaker. "Maybe we overachieved earlier in the season and our expectations are too high. Our team needs to play with energy and tonight we just didn't have it."

Arizona Reid, a 6-foot-5, sophomore forward who is the team's leading scorer at 22.5 points per game, was particularly devastating to UVSC. He scored just two points in the first half, but went nuts in the second half for 20 points on 10-of-16 shooting. He also pulled down a game-high 13 rebounds.

Reid scored the first seven points of the half for High Point to set the tone.

After Reid's scoring outburst, Mike Jefferson nailed a 3-pointer and added a 10-foot jumper to give the Panthers a 47-41 lead with 13:25 left to play.

Allison, who led UVSC with 22 points, finally scored for the Wolverines to trim the deficit to 47-43 with 13:20 left, but when Reid wasn't scoring on short, easy turnaround jumpers, Jefferson was finding open seams in UVSC's defense and scoring off driving layups. Jefferson finished with 21 points and hit three 3-pointers.

UVSC tried to mount a comeback. Heck hit a 3-pointer with 10:46 to play that cut the deficit to 51-49, but five minutes later, High Point had built an 11-point lead and put the game away.

"I thought defensively we got some stops and that led to some easy baskets for us on the other end of the court," Lundy noted.

High Point, a Division I team from High Point, N.C., improved to 7-3, while UVSC fell dropped to 6-7 and will now embark on a three-game road trip that includes stops in North and South Dakota.

"We have 15 games left," Hunsaker said. "If we don't firm up and find a backbone and play with some energy, there's going to be a lot more nights like these."

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page C3.