Box Score
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern men's basketball team (8-12, 5-4 SSC) took a road loss against one of the nation's best teams, falling to the No. 2 Florida Southern Mocs (18-1, 7-1 SSC) Saturday, 95-73.
Chris Page (So., Plainfield, Ind.) led his squad on a rough night, scoring 20 points on 6-for-13 shooting.
Justin Jeangerard (Jr., Weaverville, Calif.) had a team-best six rebounds to go with his eight points.
Brian Cahill (Jr., Arlington, Va.) was the lead playmaker, with five assists and six points.
"Give all the credit to Florida Southern, their players and coaches," stated head coach
Gary Tuell. "They did a great job in game preparation and their kids were terrific carrying out their plans. I don't think we played nearly as hard as we are capable of. But that might be because Florida Southern is so much more athletic and physically more gifted than we are. When they play well they can make you look really bad.
NSU did not carry its hot shooting into Saturday's game, as the Sharks struggled from 3-point range in the first half. Florida Southern would catch fire early, as Tyler Kelly made his first three treys to build a lead his team would never give up. Florida Southern would make six of its first 11 3-point attempts to distance themselves from NSU. The Sharks did their best to keep the deficit to single digits, but the Mocs would end the first half on an 11-3 run to go up 15 points at the break, 49-34.
NSU entered the night averaging 18 3-pointers made over the previous three games, but shot 3-for-16 from downtown in the first half against Florida Southern. The Mocs shot 16-for-32 from the floor and 6-for-15 from 3-point range before intermission. Page led the Sharks in the first half, scoring 12 points on 4-for-7 shooting.
The Mocs did not take their foot off the gas at the start of the second half, going up, 59-40, just three and a half minutes into the game. NSU continued its shooting struggles and could never crack into the home team's big lead. Florida Southern held its largest lead of the game at 89-54 with 6:34 left, allowing the nation's second-ranked team to cruise to victory.
The Sharks had one of their worst shooting night of the season, making just 22-of-61 for a 36 percent mark. The Sharks shot 9-for-32 from 3-point range on the night. The Mocs finished with stellar shooting marks, going 57.6 percent from the floor, 38 percent from downtown and 19-for-21 from the foul line.
We obviously didn't have the right plan," stated Tuell. "We were never able to stop them from doing what they wanted on the offensive end. They were able to control, or at least contain, a lot of the things we like to do offensively. Capers shot the ball well, but all of their players shot well. I thought Kelly's three 3's early in the game got them off to a great start. I'm not sure anyone on our side played well enough to deserve mention. I thought Stian (Berg) and Mo (Fuller) played pretty hard. This probably would have been a good game to sit Brian Cahill out (due to nagging injuries). In retrospect I wish I had done that."
Stian Berg (Jr., Baerum, Norway) and
Maurice Fuller (Jr., Westfield, Ind.) each scored 11 points.
Casey Carroll (So., Youngstown, Ohio) scored 10 points and pulled down five rebounds. He went 2-for-2 from beyond the arc and has now made 13 straight 3-pointers.
NSU will play at home in the next three outings, beginning with Wednesday's game against Eckerd at 7:30 p.m.
"I'm looking forward to getting back into practice Monday and getting things straightened out," said Tuell. "We are looking forward to bouncing back on Wednesday and see if we can get back in the groove against Eckerd. A lot of people have come up here and gotten their feelings hurt, so we need to shake that off.
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