Shooting guards Leemire Goldwire and Marcus Bennett keyed a 21-6 run midway through the second half as Charlotte raced away from Richmond, 64-47, to capture its fourth straight Atlantic 10 Conference victory. The 49ers, who avenged a January loss to the Spiders, stand alone in second-place in the A-10 with an 8-3 record.

With Charlotte holding a slight four-point lead, 33-29, with under 14 minutes left to play, the 49ers used an alley-oop dunk from Curtis Withers and a conventional three-point play by De'Angelo Alexander to help extend the lead to nine, 40-31, before Goldwire and Bennett supplied the fireworks to put the game out of reach. On the five consecutive possessions, Goldwire hit a three, Bennett nailed a short jumper, Goldwire added back-to-back threes and Bennett hit a long distance trey to give Charlotte a 19-point lead, 54-35. The three-point barrage helped the 49ers to score 31 points in the final 14 minutes, after scoring 33 in the first 26 minutes. Richmond is known for keeping offenses down, leading the A-10 and ranking fourth in the nation by allowing opponents just 56.2 points per game.

Goldwire finished with a game-high 19 points, hitting 4-of-8 threes and Bennett added a career-high 15 points, hitting 3-of-5 long rangers. Withers, who played just seven minutes in the second half had 14 points and seven rebounds.

Richmond had defeated the 49ers in Richmond in January, 63-56, in part by holding the 49ers to just 4-of-15 threes (.267). Wednesday night, Charlotte hit 8-of-21 (.381).

Charlotte also won the battle of the boards, 29-27, while forcing more turnovers (17-10), courtesy of nine steals. Goldwire had four steals to follow up a six-steal performance at Wake Forest.

Withers became the 10th player in 49ers history to score 1600 career points, while Mitchell Baldwin passed out his 103rd assist of the year, giving him 100+ assists in each of the last two years.

Richmond was led by three players with nine points.

Charlotte moved a game ahead of Fordham (7-4 in A-10) in the A-10 standings thanks to Fordham's loss at Xavier. Charlotte plays at Fordham, Saturday. La Salle (8-4 in A-10) slipped into third-place, a half-game behind Charlotte with its win over St. Bonaventure.