All year long, Charleston coach Mark Downey has been waiting for his team to fully jell, sticking by the statement, "we're not there yet."

Well, his team may have fully arrived on Saturday night, albeit in a less-than-stellar performance.

The Golden Eagles trailed by as much as 17 in the first half and didn't grab their first lead until 23.1 seconds remained, but they gutted out an 82-78 win over Seton Hill on Senior Night at Eddie King Gym.

On a night Charleston maybe should've come up short, the Eagles still found a way to earn their ninth-straight win, which was a great sight to see for Downey.

"We made some big shots," Downey said. "P.J. [Reyes] was good all night, but we really made some big shots. Xavier Humphrey made a big shot; Evan Faulkner made a big shot. We just really made some big-time plays.

"It's nice to get a win like that when you play that bad."

Indeed, the deciding contributions came from various sources for the Eagles, punctuated by a Reyes layup to finally put UC up 80-78. It capped a 28-14 closing run that gave Charleston (21-5 overall, 16-4 West Virginia Conference) the advantage. Eladio Espinosa hit two foul shots with under five seconds left to complete the scoring.

Along the way, Evan Faulkner completed a crucial four-point play to cut the Griffin advantage to four and Xavier Humphrey buried a key 3-pointer with 1:43 remaining to tie the game for the first time.

The common denominator through it all was rebounding, especially on the offensive end. UC grabbed 22 critical offensive boards, including 10 from Espinosa alone.

But the night belonged to a group of five seniors who were brought in under varying circumstances and have been with the program a varying amount of time. All five - Reyes, Marco Richardson, Philip Outley, Brandon Ross and Marcus Knott - started Saturday, with Ross being the only four-year player of the bunch. Downey said the win made the night much sweeter.

"It's big for them to get the win to send them out like that," Downey said. "I love those guys. We'll get to play at home again in a tournament game, but for Senior Night purposes it was huge to get that win. They're all great kids, great people to be around, and I really enjoy them."

"As soon as we stepped foot on campus, we all loved each other," Reyes said of the seniors. "There's no separate groups on our team, we all stick together as a family. We've got each other's back. And as far as basketball, we've come together so good and I think that's why coach is so happy with us."

An underclassman on the Seton Hill side almost ruined the feel-good story. The Griffins' Matt Miller poured in a team-best 26 points, including 6-for-9 from 3-point range, and, more importantly, seemed to strike every time UC whittled the gap to within striking distance.

As a team, the Griffins shot a crisp 10-of-15 from beyond the 3-point arc and 53.7 percent from the floor. But despite the numbers, Griffins coach Tony Morocco wasn't pleased with his squad's execution down the stretch.

"We had people trying to make plays out of our offense and we gave them an opportunity to make a run," Morocco said. "The whole deal was, two or three possessions we broke our offensive pattern and gave them an opportunity. They're big, they're way bigger than us and we got into foul trouble. They're a great team, but we had them beat."

After some bumps in the road for the Golden Eagles this season, including a 60-59 home loss to West Virginia State on Jan. 17 (UC's last loss), the team seems to have a much better grasp on how to play with each other, and just in time for the postseason.

Downey went as far as to say his team wouldn't have won Saturday's game had it been played a month ago.

"No, not at all," Downey said. "State and at Wheeling were in the same situations where we were down late and we didn't pull it out. We don't win this game a month ago, so hopefully we're maturing at the right time."

Espinosa scored 16 points and had 15 boards for Charleston while Faulkner chipped in 15 points. Chris Giles scored 14 points for Seton Hill (10-14, 8-12) and Andrew Cressler added 12.

Reach Ryan Pritt at 304-348-7948, ryan.pr...@wvgazette.com or follow him at twitter.com/RPritt.