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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern men’s basketball team (10-5, 3-2 SSC) will travel to Boca Raton, Fla. to face the Lynn Fighting Knights (3-12, 1-4 SSC) this Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 7:30 p.m.

The Sharks are coming off their first loss in over a month at Eckerd, 84-71, this past Saturday, Jan. 15 in St. Petersburg. The game was very competitive in the first half as the Sharks entered the break with a lead for the fifth straight game. Eckerd came out in the second half and immediately took control of the game. Eckerd led by as much as 18 in the final six minutes of the game and cruised to a 13 point victory.

“We learned a lot about ourselves at Eckerd on Saturday,” said head coach Gary Tuell. “That’s usually the case whenever we play there. Eckerd has such long, athletic players who defend well. Other teams in this league defend just as well, but they don’t do it with the same kind of size and athleticism that Eckerd can put on the floor. In the first half we played about as well as we could at this stage of the season. I thought our half court offense was excellent… as good as it’s been in any game this season… and our defense was good enough to keep them off balance a little. But the second half was a different story. After halftime we really didn’t compete defensively at the level necessary to win in this league, especially in the paint, and offensively we allowed them to push us out of the things we wanted to do.”

The game was reminiscent of NSU’s first game against Flagler on Nov. 29, a game in which NSU stayed competitive throughout the first half but let the game slip away down the stretch. The Sharks came back from that loss by winning seven of the next nine games, including a revenge win against Flagler on the road.

“I’m disappointed that we didn’t match Eckerd’s intensity in the last 20 minutes, but I’m encouraged that our guys understood what took place and are committed to fixing it,” said Tuell. “It’s all about creating a culture of expecting to win rather than hoping to win. We talked about it after the Eckerd game. I used my previous team, Augusta State, as a primary example.

“We changed the culture at Augusta State when I was there and the guy who followed me when I left has done a good job of maintaining that winning attitude. But as I told our guys Saturday night, Augusta State is ranked third in the nation and they beat King College by four on Saturday. We beat King by eight. Augusta Sate lost at Flagler and we beat Flagler up there by 10. So we’re good enough to play with anybody, but we have yet to get our guys to understand how important it is to have the right culture in practice and in the locker room. We have great kids; wonderful kids; smart kids. They’re the right kids to change the culture here and hopefully they want to do that.”

The Sharks will be looking to build momentum before their home game against 12th ranked Tampa, but Lynn is no tune-up opponent despite how soft their record looks. Lynn has played in close games against some of the best teams in the SSC and picked up a win on the road against then sixth ranked Alabama-Huntsville.

“Lynn has been patching together lineups and rotations almost from the start of the season when they lost senior center Michael Vidal to a knee injury,” Tuell said. “After losing Vidal they’ve also lost other key players for long stretches. They are experiencing what we’ve gone through here for most of the past six years and I feel sorry for Scott McMillin and his staff because I know how frustrating it is to deal with injuries and constant changes in lineups. But the good news for them is that they seem to be coming into our game as healthy as they’ve been in a long, long time and their recent results show it. They lost a hard-fought game to unbeaten Tampa, they lost a one pointer at perennial league power Florida Southern and they had an impressive win on the road at Florida Tech.

“Lynn has one of the best guards to play in this league in a long time in Chris Hall, who has torched us in the past. Their perimeter game is excellent, they have several very good shooters, and they’ve added a big, strong Australian (Cameron McCallum) at the break to go along with a few other very good, athletic big men. They may have had their difficulties early in the year but I look for Lynn to be a very strong force from this point on in the season.”

Lynn was one of three SSC teams to sweep the Sharks last season. Senior Alex Gynes (Nowra, Australia) will need to continue his strong play if the Sharks hope to escape Boca Raton with a victory. Gynes averaged 24 points per game last week and now ranks fourth in the conference with 18.1 points per game. John Brooks (Sr., Perris, Calif.) will also play a key factor as he is the SSC’s premier three-point shooter. After a rare poor shooting night against Barry, Brooks rebounded by shooting 5-for-8 from beyond the arc against Eckerd and kept the Sharks competitive for the first 10 minutes of the second half.

“We’ve had some terrific games with Lynn in past years, a number of which went down to the last possession or the last shot, and I suspect Wednesday’s game will be very similar to past games between our teams,” said Tuell. “We played in the same tournament with them in Valdosta, Ga., earlier this year and our guys got to see them play for two nights. Our players have a very healthy respect for Lynn. We’re looking forward to going back to work this week and seeing if we can do some things a little better against Lynn than we did them Saturday at Eckerd. But we expect Lynn to present the same kind of defensive problems and challenges for us that Eckerd gave us. We need some of our guys to find another gear and get going because every game now is important.”

Fans can follow the Sharks via live video HERE and live stats HERE. Fans can also keep track of the game through the NSU Athletics Twitter Feed at www.twitter.com/NSUSharks.