Box Score
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern men's basketball team (3-9, 0-2 SSC) returned to Sunshine State Conference competition Saturday in a road loss to the Eckerd Tritons (8-4, 1-0 SSC), 75-63.
"It's always tough to win on the road in this league, but if you can't make shots it's darn near impossible," said head coach
Gary Tuell. "We had some guys who played as hard and as well as we could hope for but just couldnt buy a basket. Give Eckerd credit. I thought they were excellent defensively and deserved to win. Both teams played about as hard as they could. Relative to intensity this game was played at a postseason level. But only one team shot the ball well and that's why Eckerd won. We missed at least a half dozen or more layups. We missed a ton of wide open threes. We missed some putbacks. You can't do that in our league and win. You have to capitalize on those opportunities and we didn't do it."
Brian Cahill (Jr, Arlington, Va.) followed up a career-best night against Amherst by scoring a game-high 20 points on 5-for-10 shooting, including 4-for-7 from 3-point range. He was also a perfect 6-for-6 from the free throw line.
Chris Page (So., Plainfield, Ind.) scored 12 points on 5-for-11 shooting and posted team-bests with six boards and three assists.
"Brian Cahill had another very good offensive game but he's playing with one flat tire," said Tuell. "He gutted it out for us but just wasn't able to be as active in our presses as we need him to be."
The Sharks came out strong, taking their largest lead early in the first half at 11-5 just six minutes into the game. From there, Eckerd hit its stride offensively to take control of the game. The home team shot 13-for-26 in the period and were led by Jerrick Stevenson, who scored 18 points before the break. NSU trailed at the break, 37-30.
NSU started the second half cold, making two of its first six shot attempts. Eckerd would stretch the lead by as much as 14 points at 46-32. NSU would cut the deficit to five points with just over 13 minutes remaining on three straight 3-point plays, two of which by Cahill.
NSU would have its momentum halted by the home team, who went on a 10-0 run over the next three minutes. The run was ended by a long 2-pointer from
Maurice Fuller (Jr., Westfield, Ind.). From there, NSU would come within 10 points of the Tritons but never cracked the double-digit deficit.
Fuller would finish the day with 10 points on 3-for-9 shooting and five rebounds, one short of his season-high.
Stian Berg (Jr., Baerum, Norway) scored 11 points on 4-for-7 shooting.
On the day, NSU collected 12 offensive boards and limited its turnovers to 10. However, Eckerd played an efficient game, shooting 52 percent (25-for-48) and only committing seven turnovers. NSU finished the day shooting 38 percent (20-for-53).
"Eckerd finished with only seven turnovers and we need to force more than that to beat good teams," stated Tuell. "We let them out of too many traps and they handled the pressure extremely well. We only turned it over 10 times against a very physical, athletic team that was playing hard. So the game was very well played and it just came down to shooting. We just missed way too many good shots.
"I give our kids a lot of credit. Our little runts battled and fought and did a great job on the glass. I never dreamed we could out-rebound them. I thought Cahill and
Justin Jeangerard (Jr., Weaverville, Calif.) and
Casey Carroll (So., Youngstown, Ohio) and
Brandon Patchan (Fr., Tampa, Fla.) did a solid job defending their post guys. I thought we worked our butts off. It's a shame to play that hard and not be able to make enough shots to give yourself a chance to win.
The Sharks will continue their road trip but return to South Florida, facing Lynn on Wednesday in Boca Raton, Fla. at 7:30 p.m. on 640 Sports.
"We will learn a lot from the loss and try to make some adjustments," said Tuell. "If our guys keep giving the same effort they gave tonight we will be fine. We'll learn from this one and move forward. Any loss is disappointing but this was not discouraging. We can play better and we will."
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