BOX SCORE

MELBOURNE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern University men’s basketball team (12-9, 5-6 SSC) dropped a road SSC matchup to Florida Tech (16-9, 6-5 SSC), 69-61, on Wednesday evening at the Charles and Ruth Clemente Center.

Despite NSU hitting 40 percent (19-for-48) to Florida Tech’s 37 percent (21-for-57), the Sharks committed 19 turnovers and were outrebounded, 40-33.

With the loss, senior Lemar Dyer (Miami, Fla.) also snapped his consecutive free-throw streak at 48 in the first half. The streak was the program's longest during NSU's NCAA era.

Senior John Brooks paced the Sharks as NSU’s leading scorer with 13. The Perris, Calif. native finished the night a perfect 7-for-7 from the free-throw line.

In the first half, there were four lead changes but the Sharks looked sharp in the opening minutes as four different NSU players scored and took a 9-1 lead.

Florida Tech quickly responded and cut the lead to 11-8 with 12:52 left in the first. Within two minutes, the Panthers evened the score and eventually went ahead 18-11 at the 10:36 mark.

The Sharks did not cave and locked the game at 23-23 on a Dyer free-throw.

Brooks was fouled on the arm on a three-point attempt and was not dismayed, connecting on all three at the charity stripe as NSU took the lead by four with 4:57 left in the first.

Junior Teddy Tassy (Boca Raton, Fla.) swished one of his four three’s with one second left on the clock as both teams headed into the locker room at intermission tied at 31.

Florida Tech started the second half on a 10-2 run before Brooks trickled the Panther run with one of the Sharks six trey’s of the game.

For the second straight game, NSU trailed by double-digits at the midway point of the second half and fought back to deadlock the game at 57-57 with 3:40 left.

Sophomore Lukas Roesch (Lancaster, Ohio) made two jumpers in the Sharks' comeback run.

Dyer gave the Sharks the lead on the dish from Alex Gynes (Sr., Nowra, Australia), for NSU’s first lead of the half with 2:55 remaining. Gynes finished with 12 points on 4-for-9 shooting.

Nova Southeastern got possession of the ball after a defensive rebound and a two-point lead but a foul called under the basket brought Florida Tech’s lead scorer, Justin Sedlak to the line at the 3:01 mark. As he hit both, the Sharks could not convert on their end and Demetrius Harvey drained a three as the Panthers retook the lead and never looked back.

Sedlak finished with game-highs of 23 points and 14 rebounds.

NSU falls to 2-4 in SSC road games this season.

Nova Southeastern will return to the confines of its home court to tackle Eckerd on Saturday, Feb. 12th at the NSU Arena in the Don Taft University Center at 4 p.m.